Mortar Ink Runs

A wall of grey mortar, a handful of numbered boxes, and one question: where does the shading go?

Mortar Ink Runs is a quiet logic puzzle built on a single unusual idea. Every clue is a list, never a total. Walk the eight cells that surround a numbered box as a closed loop, and the shaded stretches you meet must have exactly the lengths printed in that box. What the box refuses to tell you is the order.

A clue of 2 means one stretch of two cells. A clue of 1 1 means two lone cells that never touch. Same amount of ink, completely different shape. That gap between what you are told and what you can prove is the whole game.

THREE RULES

1. A numbered box is never shaded, and the loop around it must read exactly as listed. Two stretches always have at least one blank cell between them.
2. Every shaded cell joins one single group, connected edge to edge.
3. No two by two square anywhere on the wall is shaded on all four cells.

That is all of it. No hidden mechanics, no unlockable rules, nothing that has to be bought.

WALLS THAT ARE ACTUALLY SOLVABLE

Each wall is grown fresh on your device: a connected shape is laid down first, the loop clues are printed around it, and then clues are rubbed out one by one for as long as a full solver can still prove the answer is unique. Nothing reaches you until it has been checked. Three sizes to work in, eight by eight for a coffee break, ten by ten for room to make a mistake, and twelve by twelve when you want the afternoon to disappear.

BUILT FOR THINKING, NOT FOR TAPPING

- Tap a cell to shade it, tap again to leave your own blank dot, again to clear it.
- Drag across the wall to paint a whole stretch in one stroke.
- Select any clue to outline its eight-cell loop and watch the stretches you have shaded line up against the list it is asking for.
- A clue fades quietly when it reads correctly and turns rust red when it can no longer work, so a wrong turn shows up early.
- Check flags filled two by two blocks, stranded shading and clues that have become impossible.
- Undo as far back as you like. Take a hint if a wall has beaten you, or finish clean and have it recorded.

KEPT ON YOUR DEVICE

A wall log tracks how many you have finished at each size, your best times, how many you solved without a single hint, and how much charcoal you have laid down in total. Ten trowel marks wait to be earned along the way. All of it is stored locally and survives closing the app.

COMPLETELY OFFLINE

No internet connection is used or needed. No ads. No tracking, no accounts, no in-app purchases, no permissions beyond the vibration used for the optional touch tick. And no sound at all, ever: the feedback here is entirely visual, so the app is as comfortable on a night train or a plane as it is on the sofa.

A DELIBERATE LOOK

Everything you see is drawn as flat shapes on a rough plaster surface: warm mortar grey, matte charcoal shading, ochre numerals. No photographs, no glow, no animation for its own sake. Just a wall, a trowel and a list of runs that will not tell you which way round they go.