Five Tents in Ten Minutes: My Challenge by the Trees
I expected a warm-up. Tents by the Trees looks peaceful: green grass, trees, numbers along the edges. I set myself a dare — five boards in ten minutes. On board three the timer beeped with two tents of eight placed.
The rules of the run
Simple terms: small board, two minutes on the clock, no Hint button. Click for a tent, again for a grass dot, a third clears. A tree with no tent beside it is a disgrace, a tent with no tree beside it likewise. Row numbers tell how many tents each line holds: a zero row goes all dots in one sweep — free seconds.
Where I bled time
Reviewing the failed run hurt: I sank on trees in open grass. A tree in the middle has four neighbours — good luck guessing. The time was elsewhere: rows where the count equals the tree number. Three trees in a row with a 3 means every tent sits by its own tree, and cells shared by two trees drop out by themselves. I never saw it and brute-forced four cells. Two minutes burned.
Second attempt
New run, new order: all zero rows dotted first, then the count-equals-trees rows, and only then lone trees in corners. Five boards in nine minutes forty seconds. Done. I thought I was training speed, but I was learning to spot forced moves. Now I play slowly — and hint-free.