How to play Magpies.

1. Numbers by every row and every column. Each number is the length of one block of filled cells, in order, with at least one empty cell between two blocks. A grid with eight rows has eight columns; the size changes through the week, from eight by eight on Monday to fifteen by fifteen on Sunday.

2. A filled cell means a magpie left something shiny there. An empty cell means nothing. Work out, from the numbers alone, which is which.

3. A cross is your own note that a cell stays empty. Crosses are yours; the game does not judge them, except when you ask with Check. When every number is satisfied, the game checks the whole picture by itself.

Crosses are notes, not answers. Placing a cross narrows the room left for a block in that line; the game never marks a cross wrong while you play, only when you ask with Check. On the phone, hold your finger and drag to sweep the same mark over several cells. On a keyboard, arrows move, F fills, X crosses, Delete clears, P pauses.

A cross you were wrong about is shown by Check, never by the board turning red while you play.

Every picture opens with steps like these. Hint finds the next one for you, outlines the row or column it is looking at, marks the cells that follow and says why; press it again to fill them in. Hints are counted and shown when you finish, never hidden.

• Forced overlap. A block bigger than half the line must overlap itself wherever it goes: work out its leftmost and rightmost position and mark what both agree on.
• Exactly enough room. When a line's numbers, with a gap between each, add up to exactly the line's length, every block's position is forced.
• A full line. Once a row or column's numbers are satisfied, every other cell in it is a cross.
• Marks already placed. Crosses and filled cells you placed narrow what still fits; Hint reasons from them the same way it reasons from the numbers alone.