Wool Gates

What is Wool Gates?

Wool Gates is our take on the color block jam puzzle. A pasture sits inside a wooden fence. Gates are set into the fence, each one dyed a color. Flocks of one to five sheep wait in the grass, each flock dyed one color too. Your job is to slide every flock out through a gate of its own color.

There's no clock and no lives. You can think as long as you like. Levels are short, usually a minute or two, and stars are earned by finishing in few moves. It's free and runs in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer.

Colors always come with a shape, so you never have to rely on color alone: raspberry sheep wear a heart tag, cornflower a circle, marigold a star, mint a diamond, violet a triangle and cream a square. The gates show the same shapes.

For more puzzles where every color has its place, see our sort puzzle games page.

How to play

Drag a flock up, down, left or right. It follows your finger one cell at a time and can't pass hedges, trees, bales, the dog or other sheep. Let go and it settles in the nearest cell. If you'd rather tap, tap a flock and then tap a cell in line with it, and the flock walks there.

A flock leaves when it touches the fence at a gate of its color and its whole width along that side fits inside the gate. Gates are one, two or three cells wide. Flocks never rotate, so a flock too wide for a gate on the top fence may still fit a gate on the side fence.

Dye wheels

From level 9 some gates carry a little painted dye wheel. After every move you make, the wheel turns to its next color. The pointer shows the color right now and the small dot beside the wheel shows the color that comes next. A flock resting against a wheel gate trots out by itself the moment the wheel reaches its color, so a common trick is to park a flock at its gate and spend a useful move elsewhere while the wheel comes round.

What counts as a move

A move is any drag or tap that changes where a flock stands, however far it slides. Sliding a flock five cells in one go is one move. Sheep that leave on their own when a wheel turns don't cost anything extra.

Controls on phone and computer

• Phone and tablet: drag a flock, or tap a flock and then tap where it should go.
• Mouse: the same, click and drag or click twice.
• Keyboard: Tab or the arrow keys move the focus ring between flocks, Enter or Space picks a flock up, the arrows slide it, and Enter sets it down.
• U undoes, H shows a hint, Esc pauses.

The five farms

The level map has 300 levels across five farms. Each farm brings a new piece of the rules, and a new idea turns up about every ten levels with a short, gentle level to introduce it. Every fifth level or so is labelled Tricky, and the level after it is a breather.

Lambs are worth a second look. When a lamb joins a flock, the flock gets bigger, and a bigger flock may no longer fit the gate you had in mind. Bales are the other thing to watch: they only go where you push them, so a bale shoved into a corner stays there.

Stars and par

Each level has a par: the fewest moves our solver found, plus 2 (plus 4 on a Tricky level). Finish at par or under for three stars. Finish within par plus 40 percent for two stars. Any finish earns one star. Your best result is kept, so you can always come back for the third star.

Helpers

• Undo takes back your last move. The first Undo on every pasture is free.
• Hint is always free and shows a good next move with an arrow.
• Shears trim one sheep off a flock, which can make it narrow enough for a gate.
• Hold Gates stops every dye wheel for your next 3 moves.
• Whistle sends one flock straight out through a gate of its color, ignoring the path.

You start with two Undos and one of each other helper. More come from daily goals, a gift box every 25 stars with one of each helper, a farm milestone every tenth level, every fifth pattern in the knitting circle, and the weekly fair ribbon.

Most pastures can't get stuck, because every slide can be undone by sliding back. Bales, lambs and one-way fences can make a position impossible. If that happens a No way out card appears, and you can take a free step back, use a helper or restart the pasture at no cost.

Daily Pasture and leaderboards

The Daily Pasture is the same puzzle for everyone on the same UTC day. Your first finished run of the day is the one that counts. Replays are practice and never change your score.

Daily scores go to the daily leaderboard and your total stars go to the stars board. The day streak counts days in a row with a finished daily, and one missed day each week is forgiven as a rest day. Three daily goals each pay a helper once.

County Fair and the knitting circle

Every Monday (UTC) a new County Fair pasture opens. It's shaped like a picture, such as a heart, a barn, a mitten or a teacup, with more flocks and more wheels than a normal level. Clear it to pin a ribbon in your collection.

Every sheep you herd out brings its wool home. The village knitting circle turns that wool into a book of 50 patterns: scarves, bobble hats, mittens, sweaters and quilts for ten villagers. Each pattern needs wool of two or three colors, and the villagers wear what you knit on the village green.

Tips and strategy

• Before you move, find the flock that can leave right now. Clearing one early opens the pasture for everyone else.
• When a flock blocks a gate, the best first move is often that flock, not the one you want out.
• Count the wheel. If a gate needs three more turns to show your color, make three useful moves first and park your flock at the gate on the last one.
• Look at a flock's width on every side. An L shape might be two wide along the top fence and three tall along the side fence.
• Keep lambs away from a flock until you're sure the bigger flock still fits a gate.

Questions