How to play Voles.

1. Every number is a vole family. It says how big their island is, the number's own cell included. Shade the rest of the meadow as water so that every island holds exactly one number and exactly that many cells.

2. Islands never touch by a side. Two islands may sit corner to corner, never side by side, or they would be one island with two numbers. The water always hangs together as a single sheet, and no two by two block is ever all water.

A dot is your own note, not a judgement. Tap a cell for water, tap again for a dot that says the cell stays dry, once more to clear it. The game never marks a dot 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, W floods, X dots, Delete clears, P pauses.

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

Every meadow opens with steps like these. Hint finds the next one for you, lights the cell it means and says why, without saying whether it is water or dry; press it again to mark it. Hints are counted and shown when you finish, never hidden.

• A family of 1. Its whole island is that one cell, so all four sides are water already.
• Between two numbers. A cell touching two different numbers by a side cannot belong to either: it is water.
• Out of reach. A number can never lie more than its own size away from its cell; anything further off, with no other number near, is water.
• The last corner. Three cells of a two by two block already shaded force the fourth to stay dry, or a piece of water with a single way out has to take it.