Lay me a way across, and mind the tide. I will walk whatever you put down.
30 Deep ponds, easiest first, five to a sitting.
A pond, a scatter of rocks, and Ponoki waiting on the near bank. You tap out a path one rock at a time, all the way across and, in Deep mode, all the way back. Then you send Ponoki along it, and you watch what you decided actually happen.
The catch is that each rock goes under the moment it is stepped off. Nothing can be walked twice, so a route can never cross itself, and a rock you spend early is a rock that is not there when you need it later. The tide gives you a fixed number of steps, which is what stops a long way round from being a free answer.
Tap a rock on the bottom row to start, then tap along, one step at a time, up and down and side to side. No diagonals. Tap the last rock again to take it back, or an earlier one to trim the route to there. Reset starts over. Set off whenever you like, even part way through: Ponoki walks exactly what you laid, and if it runs out they end up in the water, which costs nothing and tells you a lot.
The lantern has to be picked up before the flag will light. In Deep mode the flag is only half the job, because Ponoki still has to get home, and the way home has to be built out of rocks the way out did not use.
Mossy rocks are slippery and Ponoki cannot stop on one. They carry straight on in the direction they came in and stop on the first rock that is not mossy. That makes moss a way of covering ground cheaply and a way of losing control of where you end up, in the same move. If there is nothing on the far side to catch them, they will not set off at all, and the game will show you which directions do work.
Easy is one way across: reach the flag and the pond is done. The ponds are small, the routes are short, and there is usually more than one way through, so it is a place to learn what the rocks do.
Deep is there and back. Lighting the flag is only half of it, because the way home has to be built out of the rocks the way out did not spend, and you have to see that far before you lay the first one. Deep ponds are long, they have exactly one answer, and they are difficult on purpose. Several attempts is the intended experience rather than a sign you are doing it wrong.
There is no score, no timer on a single decision, no streak to break and no way to lose. A route that does not reach is just a route that does not reach. Ponoki gets wet, says something kind, and the pond comes straight back exactly as it was. After one attempt you can ask to be shown a route, and being shown costs you nothing at all.
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