How to play
- Goal
- Colour every province with one of four inks so provinces sharing a border have different inks.
- How it ends
- A chart is won when every province is coloured correctly; there is no loss, and corner-only contact does not count as a border.
- Record
- Your first unaided solve time for each chart is kept; replay is practice.
- Give every province one of four inks. Provinces sharing a whole edge must have different inks. Touching only at a corner is allowed, and glowing seed provinces stay fixed.
- The worked picture comes from Chart 001. The highlighted province has Ruby, Teal and Violet along its borders, so its only remaining ink is Amber. That single deduction leaves the rest of the chart for you.
- Tap a free province to cycle blank, Ruby, Amber, Teal, Violet and blank. The ink palette paints a selected province directly. A red outline shows a border clash. Undo, Redo, Clear and Restart let you revise; Restart keeps the first clock running.
- All four galleries are open. Your first unaided finish is the only timed solve for that chart; later replays are practice. Leaving an unfinished chart and returning in this page preserves its clock.
Controls
| Tap / click a province | Cycle blank and the four inks |
|---|---|
| Ruby / Amber / Teal / Violet | Paint the selected free province directly |
| Arrow keys | Move the visible province focus |
| Enter / Space | Cycle the focused province |
| 1–4 / 0 | Paint or clear the focused province |
| Z / Y | Undo or redo |
| R / Escape | Restart with the same clock / close a panel or return to the atlas |
| Gamepad | D-pad moves; A cycles, X clears, shoulder buttons change ink, B returns, Y opens rules and Start opens settings |
Tips for Map Colouring
- Edges bind Trace a whole shared edge before ruling out an ink. A single shared point does not count.
- Read the fixed inks A province bordered by three different seed inks has only the fourth ink left.
Questions about this game
Can the same ink touch at a corner?
Yes. The border rule concerns a shared edge, even a short one.
Must I guess on later charts?
No. Each of the 160 charts has one exact answer and a separately checked path of forced moves.
All 160 charts are distinct under rotation and reflection, with connected provinces, one exact four-ink answer and a no-guess deduction trace. Every answer uses at least one same-ink corner-only pair. Private witnesses never ship. Progress uses morass.map-colouring.v1. No ads or analytics run inside the game.
Watch how to play
About Map Colouring
At a moonlit cartographer’s table, wash the outlined provinces of a fantasy atlas in Ruby, Amber, Teal and Violet ink. Each ink has its own rune so the map reads without colour alone.
Explore 160 original charts across four open galleries. Every map has one independently proved answer and a sequence of forced deductions; small charts introduce the shared-border rule before the atlas grows.
Your first solve time stays with each chart. An uninterrupted first clear on the game page can claim the named best; replay is practice.
