How to play Kinopy

Kinopy is a daily link puzzle shaped like a plant. This guide covers the moves, then each mode, the lifelines, the Calendar and Endless.

The seed

Every plant grows from a hidden seed word. A hint in the sky helps you find it. The hint is a line of words that points at the seed on the soil line.

The hint shows from the start and stays when the Rootlet ends. Every mode works the same way.

Two boards, one seed

Each puzzle has two boards that share one seed. The seed sits on the soil line. The Rootlet grows down from it as roots. The Sapling grows up from it.

You play the Rootlet first. When it ends, the Sapling grows up from the same seed. The Sapling gives you one guess fewer.

Pairs

Kinopy is a game about joining two tiles into a pair. A tile holds a word, a fragment, a number or an operator. The line between two tiles is a branch, and the two tiles at its ends are a pair.

What a pair must make depends on the mode. It can be a word, a phrase or a sum. The mode sections below give the rule for each.

Linking

To link two tiles, tap the line between them. The branch is now linked. A linked branch is your guess about that pair. Nothing is checked until you tap Submit.

Submit

Tap Submit to check your linked branches. A right pair grows green. A wrong pair is cut. Submit checks every branch on the board, linked or not.

Each Submit uses one guess. You win the board when every pair is right. You lose the board when you run out of guesses. The outer ring on the Submit bubble counts your guesses.

Order matters

The order of a pair matters. The level sets the direction. On the Rootlet, the plant grows down, so the first part of the pair sits at the top. On the Sapling, the plant grows up, so the first part sits at the bottom.

For example, HORSE PLAY reads top to bottom on the Rootlet and bottom to top on the Sapling. The mode rules say the same thing: the tile nearer the soil line comes first.

Swapping tiles

You can swap tiles. Drag a tile and release it to exchange places. Or tap one tile, then tap another, to swap the two.

Linked tiles swap together. If there is space, the other tiles at the destination move to make room for the whole linked group.

The five modes

Each mode has its own kind of pair. Each mode also has its own daily puzzle. Every mode has a Rootlet and a Sapling.

Kompanion: phrase

Each pair makes a phrase or a compound word. The tile nearer the soil line comes first.

Example: POINT connects to BLANK (point blank) and to GUARD (point guard).

catKin: word

The two fragments of a pair make one word. The fragment nearer the soil line comes first.

Example: PAN connects to TRY (pantry) and to CAKE (pancake).

Kalyx: math

Each number branches to two numbers and the operator between them. Read left to right. The three tiles equal the number.

Example: 12 connects to 3, × and 4, because 3 × 4 = 12.

Klimber: ladder

On the Rootlet, the two words of a pair differ by one letter. The letter sits in the same place in both. On the Sapling, each pair changes one letter, adds one letter or takes one letter away.

Example: COLD connects to CORD and to BOLD. On the Sapling, COLD can also connect to OLD and to SCOLD.

sKion: splice

A word branches to words that start with its last three or more letters. Kinopy highlights the last letters of a word to help you spot a match.

Example: PICNIC connects to NICKEL and to NICHE.

Lifelines

Lifelines help when you are stuck. Open the Submit bubble to see them. Hover or hold a lifeline to read its tooltip. Tap to choose it, then tap Use hint. The game picks the target, not you.

A lifeline uses no guess, and you still tap Submit to finish. Wins, streaks and guess scores count as usual. The inner ring counts your lifelines.

• Graft: join a pair in the right order. The tiles stay joined and move together.
• Stake: place one tile in its correct spot and pin it there.
• Transplant: place, pin and join a pair.
• In Kalyx, Graft and Transplant help a whole equation. Stake pins one number.
• Each date gives one of each lifeline, shared across all ten boards of that date. Each past date has its own set.
• Endless gives one Graft per plant, shared by the Rootlet and the Sapling.

The Calendar and Endless

A new daily grows at midnight in your own time zone. A guest plays today's daily in every mode, with both the Rootlet and the Sapling. You do not need an account.

Sign in with Google to open the Calendar, which holds the dailies you missed. Signing in also opens Endless. Your account saves your progress and brings it to every device.

Endless grows a puzzle from a random seed, as often as you like. It has a Rootlet, a Sapling and a hint for its seed. It also has a Fog switch that hides far tiles. A hidden tile shows again when Submit turns a nearby branch green.

A streak counts the days in a row that you win the Rootlet in a mode. Only today's daily counts. Endless and past dailies do not change your streak.

Privacy

Kinopy sends the connections you try in each daily, with no name or account attached. This helps find connections that are too hard. You can turn it off with the Help tune puzzles switch in Settings. Read the privacy page for the details.

About Kinopy

Kinopy is a personal take on Pyralinks by TMBoyz LLC. Tetsuhiro Development, a one-person studio in Singapore, makes Kinopy. Read more on the About page.