Cozy Puzzle

Ornament Match

A triple tile match on the night the tree goes up: pick ornaments off the top of the heap and keep a hook free.

What you do

Dottie, a polar bear cub in a red knit sweater and a green scarf, holds a pine branch over an open box of ornaments packed in tissue paper. Baubles, stars, candy canes, pinecones, bells, snowflakes, mittens, gingerbread figures, glass icicles, owls, hearts and penguins lie in a heap, layer on layer. Only an ornament with nothing lying on it can be picked up. It hangs beside its own kind on the branch, and as soon as three alike hang there they sparkle off to the tree. The branch has seven hooks, so the puzzle is in the order: fill them with odd ones and the branch tangles. Thirty boxes fill three evenings. The lights go on the tree after the first ten, the garland after the next ten and the star at the very end. Tonight’s box is a new heap every day. Every box is dealt from a winning order, so each one can be cleared without a single helper.

How to play

Press the button on the title card to open the first box. Each box you finish opens the next, and Tonight’s box is open from the start.
Tap an ornament that has nothing lying on it. Shaded ornaments are covered and wait until the ones on top are gone.
The ornament hangs on the branch next to any of its own kind. Three alike on the branch fly to the tree and free their hooks.
If all seven hooks fill with no three alike, the branch is too tangled. Take the last one back or try the box again; ribbons already earned are kept.
Undo, Shuffle and the spare hook are refilled for every box. A box finished with no helpers earns three ribbons, with one helper two, and with more one.

Controls

Touch or mouse: tap an ornament on top of the heap to hang it. On a computer, ornaments you can pick up glow when the pointer is over them.
Keyboard: arrow keys move between the ornaments on top, Space or Enter hangs the one that glows, U or Z undoes, S shuffles, H adds the spare hook and T opens the tree. Escape closes the tree.
Buttons: Undo puts the last ornament back in the box (twice per box), Shuffle trades the places of the ornaments left in the box (once per box) and Spare hook adds an eighth hook for the rest of the box. The box name in the scoreboard opens the tree, with every box and night.
Toolbar: pause, help, restart (starts the box on screen over; ribbons and other boxes stay), optional sound and fullscreen.

Tips worth knowing

Before tapping, look for an ornament that matches a pair already on the branch. A third one always frees two hooks.
Uncover before you collect: an ornament that frees two or three covered ones is often worth a hook.
With two hooks left, only hang something that makes three or that has a partner on top of the heap.

Accessibility

Everything can be played with a keyboard, and every button is reachable with Tab.
Nothing counts down. Too tangled is a soft stop with a way back, never a loss of progress.
Each of the twelve ornaments has its own shape as well as its own color, so no match depends on color alone.
Each ornament hung, every three sent to the tree and the end of a box are announced to screen readers, and the room has a spoken summary of the ornaments left and the hooks in use.
Reduced motion stops the swinging, the flights and Dottie’s bobbing; ornaments move straight to their places. Sound is optional and never needed to play.

Questions

Can every box be cleared?

Yes. Each box is dealt along a winning order, from the last ornament back to the first, so there is always a way through. The tests play that order for all 30 ladder boxes and a run of Tonight’s boxes. Shuffle deals the ornaments left in the box the same way, so it never leaves a box that cannot be finished.

What happens when the branch is too tangled?

Nothing you have earned is lost. You can take the last ornament back (it counts as a helper), add the spare hook if you still have it, or start the box over.

Is there a timer?

No. Nothing counts down and there are no lives or moves to run out of.

What does Ornament Match save?

On this device: which boxes are open, the most ribbons on each box, the decorations on the tree, Tonight’s box result and presents, and every box you have started but not finished, ornament by ornament. Tonight’s box in progress is cleared when the date changes. If the browser blocks saving, you can still play, and the game says your progress lasts only until you leave the page.