Cozy Puzzle

Haunted Lanterns

A light up puzzle (also known as Akari) in Hollow House, where shy bedsheet ghosts will not come out of the dark corners for their Halloween party until every room is lit.

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Haunted Lanterns light up puzzle cover artwork

What you do

A cozy logic puzzle with the classic light up rules. A lantern lights its own tile and shines along its hall in four straight lines until a wall stops it. Two lanterns may never shine on each other, and a number on a wall needs exactly that many lanterns on the tiles right beside it. When every floor tile glows, the room is lit and its ghosts throw their party. There are 36 rooms on six floors of the house, opening one at a time: the Front Hall teaches the rules in six small 5x5 and 6x6 rooms, then come the Parlor and the Library (7x7), the Guest Rooms and the Gallery (8x8), and the Attic (10x10). Tonight’s house is a new 8x8 room every day, from a set of 365. Every room has exactly one answer that you can reach one tile at a time, so no room ever needs a guess, and there is no timer, no lives and no mistake limit.

How to play

Press Light the first room on the title card. Each of the six Front Hall rooms teaches one idea, with a short note beside the board to walk you through it.
Tap a floor tile to set a lantern, and tap it again to take it away. Its light runs along the hall until it meets a wall, and the ghosts hiding on dark tiles float up as the light reaches them.
A number on a wall counts the lanterns on the four tiles right beside it (above, below, left and right). Its brass plaque glows gold when it has exactly that many and turns pink when it has too many. Walls without numbers have no rule.
If two lanterns can see each other along a hall, both flicker and the hall between them turns pink. Take one of them away.
Leave a cobweb on a tile where you know no lantern goes. Cobwebs are only notes for you: a tile with a cobweb still counts as lit when a lantern shines on it.
Stuck? Hint explains the next step in one sentence and rings the tiles it is about, and Do it carries it out. If a lantern or cobweb on the board is in the wrong place, the hint says so first.
Light every floor tile, with every number satisfied and no two lanterns shining on each other, to finish a room and open the next one. A room lit without a hint earns a golden lantern.

Controls

Touch: tap a tile to set or take away a lantern. Hold a tile for about half a second, or flip the Lantern and Mark switch to Mark, to leave or sweep away a cobweb.
Mouse: left click does what the Lantern and Mark switch says, and right click leaves or sweeps away a cobweb.
Keyboard: arrow keys or WASD move the highlighted tile, Space, Enter or L sets or takes away a lantern, X or M leaves or sweeps away a cobweb, Z, U or Backspace undoes, H asks for a hint and T flips the switch. Every button is reachable with Tab, and Escape closes the list of rooms.
Toolbar: pause, help, restart (darkens the room on screen and starts its hint count over, and Undo brings your lanterns back; on a lit room it plays the room again; records are never touched), optional sound and fullscreen.

Tips worth knowing

Start with the 0s and 4s. A 0 puts cobwebs on every tile beside it, and a 4 puts lanterns on all four. A 3 or a 2 against the house edge or another wall can be just as quick.
Look for a dark tile that only one free tile can still light. That tile gets the lantern, even when it is the dark tile itself.
A tile that is already lit can never hold a lantern, so it is a safe place for a cobweb.
Undo is free and unlimited, and so are hints. Once a room has its golden lantern, it keeps it even if you play the room again with hints.
On a phone, hold it upright for the Attic: its 10x10 rooms get the biggest tiles that way.

Accessibility

Everything can be played with a keyboard: arrow keys move a highlighted tile, Space or L sets a lantern, X or M leaves a cobweb, and every button is reachable with Tab.
Lit and dark tiles differ in brightness as well as color, a cobweb is a drawn web rather than a color, and a number keeps its large dark numeral whether its plaque is cream, gold or pink.
Each change, hint and finish is announced to screen readers, and moving the keyboard cursor reads out the tile: its row and column, and what is on it, or a wall’s number and whether it has its lanterns.
Reduced motion lights the halls at once and keeps the ghosts and lanterns still, while every tap still gets its glow. Sound is optional and never needed to play.

Questions

Does every room have one answer, without guessing?

Yes. Every one of the 36 rooms and all 365 nightly rooms has exactly one answer. The game’s checks count the answers of every room with a separate brute-force search, and solve each one from an empty board using only steps that the hints can explain.

What does Haunted Lanterns save?

On this device: which rooms are open, the fewest hints each lit room took (and so its golden lantern), every room in progress with its lanterns, cobwebs, undo history and hints, Tonight’s house in progress and tonight’s result, the room on screen last and your Lantern or Mark choice. Your progress saves after every tap, undo and hint, and when you pause or switch tabs. Tonight’s house in progress is cleared when the date changes. If the browser blocks saving, you can still play, and the game says your rooms last only until you leave the page. If saved data ever cannot be read, it is left untouched and kept as a backup when you start fresh.