Number Tiles – Rummy-Style Tile Puzzle

Number Tiles is a rummy-style tile game. The tiles run 1 to 13 in four colours (red, blue, orange and black), with two copies of every tile, and harder deals add jokers marked with a star. As in rummy, tiles go down in sets: a group is 3 or 4 tiles of the same number in different colours, and a run is 3 or more tiles of one colour on consecutive numbers.

This version is a solo puzzle against the clock: no opponents, no draw pile, no turns and no opening minimum. The dealer builds your tiles out of valid sets, so a solution always exists, and your job is to find one as fast as you can.

• Full deal: every tile starts on your rack and the table is empty.
• End game: most sets are already on the table. Your rack holds one complete set plus a few tiles pulled off the table's sets.

Easy is built from 4 sets with no jokers, Medium from 6 sets with 1 joker and Hard from 8 sets with 2 jokers. Each set is dealt with 3 or 4 tiles, so an Easy full deal is 12 to 16 tiles and a Hard one 24 to 32. In End game, up to 2, 3 or 4 tiles are pulled off the table.

The tiles are dealt face down, so nobody studies the deal for free. Start (or the S key) turns them over and starts the clock, which stops the moment your rack is empty and every set on the table is finished.

The table is a workspace. You can put down any tiles; a pile that is not a valid set yet is ringed red until you finish it. Nothing is rejected and there is no penalty, so the clock is the only cost of a wrong guess. Tap a table tile to send it back to the rack, drag it to another set or onto the felt, or press ⤺ to take a whole set back.

Tap rack tiles to select them, then press Place tiles (it reads Add run or Add group once the selection is valid). Enter places the selection and Escape clears it.

• Runs do not wrap: 12, 13, 1 is not a run.
• The dealer never builds a run longer than four, but any length is legal, so joining red 3–5 and red 6–8 into one run is fine.
• A joker stands in for any missing tile. In a run it fills a gap first, otherwise it extends an end if there is room inside 1 to 13: red 12, red 13 and a joker is a run, with the joker as 11. A pile of only jokers is not a set.
• Any valid arrangement wins, not only the one the dealer started from.

• Sort both ways. Sort by Colour to spot runs, then by Number to spot groups.
• Use the duplicates. Two blue 7s can never share a set: a run cannot repeat a number and a group cannot repeat a colour. Each belongs to a different set.
• Place the awkward tiles first. An orange 1 can only sit in a group of 1s or a run that starts 1, 2, 3. With no other 1s and no spare joker, you already know where it goes.
• Count the tiles. Thirteen tiles on Easy were dealt as three sets of three and one of four, which tells you roughly what shapes to look for.
• Play the joker last. It fits almost anywhere, so build with real tiles first and let the joker plug the gap that is left. As dealt, no set holds more than one joker.
• In End game, look at three-tile sets. Tiles are only pulled off four-tile sets, and off a run only at an end. So each loose tile fits a three-tile group of its number that lacks its colour, or extends a three-tile run of its colour. Loose tiles are never jokers, and what remains on the rack makes one more set.

The usual dead end is a long run that swallowed a tile a group needed. If a couple of tiles have nowhere to go, check the ends of your runs before taking anything else apart.

Another is assuming you are done when every tile is down but a set is still red. The clock keeps running until every pile is valid, and the status line below the rack says how many still need work.