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Place one owl in every grove (each colour and pattern is one grove), one in every row and one in every column. Owls can’t touch each other, not even diagonally. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can be solved with pure logic, so you never have to guess.

• Tap an empty spot once to mark it with ✕ (“no owl here”). Tap it again to place an owl.
• Drag across several spots to mark or clear them in one go.
• Long-press a ✕ to clear it, or use Undo.
• Turn on Auto-mark around owls in Settings to dim every spot an owl rules out.

Each owl is checked straight away. A wrong owl isn’t placed and costs a heart. You have three hearts per board; when they’re gone, the owls fly off. You can start the board over, or get a heart back by watching an optional video. Premium players can continue with a heart for free.

A hint looks at your board and explains the next logical step, such as a “Last Spot” or a “Snug Grove”, then offers to place the owl or mark the spots for you. New players start with three free hints, and you can earn another by watching an optional video. Premium includes unlimited hints. Using hints lowers the stars you earn for that level.

• ★★★ No mistakes and no hints.
• ★★ At most one mistake and at most one hint.
• ★ Any other solve.

On boards of 12×12 and larger you can pinch to zoom, drag with two fingers to move around, follow the numbered row and column rulers, and use the mini-map to see where you are. Turn on Highlight row, column & grove in Settings to light up everything around the spot you select.

Levels open in order, and each grove opens when you have solved every level of the one before it. The five Premium groves need Hootdoku Premium; the first of them opens as soon as you buy it.

A new Daily Grove grows every day at midnight UTC, and everyone gets the same board. It grows through the week: 7×7 on Monday, 8×8 on Tuesday, 9×9 on Wednesday, 10×10 on Thursday and Friday, 11×11 on Saturday and 12×12 on Sunday.

By solve time: the fastest time wins, and a tie goes to whoever finished first. Mistakes are shown next to each time but don’t change the ranking. The Daily Grove has boards for today and yesterday, and every level you complete has its own leaderboard for your best time.

• Leaderboards need an internet connection. If you solved today’s grove offline, it still counts for you, but the time isn’t ranked.
• Only your first solve of each Daily Grove is ranked.
• Results are accepted for today’s and yesterday’s grove (in UTC).

Open Settings and edit your display name. Names can be 3 to 20 characters long and use letters, numbers, spaces, underscores and hyphens. Without a name, you appear as “Anonymous Owl”.

Each grove is home to four real owl species. In each grove, a common owl appears when you solve level 10 (level 3 in Whispering Woods), an uncommon owl at level 25 (level 20 in Whispering Woods), a rare owl when you finish the grove, and a legendary owl when you earn three stars on every level. Four wandering owls turn up for playing Daily Groves and for solving levels flawlessly.

Yes. Tap any owl you’ve found in the Owlery to have it perch on every board.

• Five Premium groves with 200 hard levels
• 20 more owls to discover
• Unlimited hints
• All ten themes
• Free second chances when you run out of hearts
• No ads

Premium is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, so nothing renews.

A full-screen ad can appear when you tap Next Level after finishing a level, but not until you have played a few games, never after a Daily Grove, and at most every other level. Videos for a free hint or an extra heart only play when you choose them. Premium removes all ads.

Sign in to the App Store with the Apple Account you bought it with, open Hootdoku’s Settings and tap Restore Purchases. Restoring is free.

Purchases are handled by Apple, so refunds are too. Visit reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in, and choose the Hootdoku purchase.

No. Hootdoku creates a guest account for you automatically, and the game works offline. Your progress saves on your device as you play.

Open Settings → Account and choose Sign in with Apple. Your progress is backed up to your account, and signing in with the same Apple Account on another device brings it with you.

Open Settings → Account → Delete Account. This removes your online profile, synced progress and leaderboard times. Progress saved on your device stays there, and Premium can be restored afterwards because it belongs to your Apple Account. For any other deletion request, email [email protected]. See the Privacy Policy for details.

Turn on Stronger grove patterns in Settings. Every grove gets a bolder pattern so you can tell them apart without relying on colour. You can also try a different theme.

Use the Sound and Haptics switches in Settings. Hootdoku’s sounds also follow your device’s silent switch and mix with music from other apps.

Check your connection and reopen the Daily Grove. You can still play today’s board offline; your time just won’t be ranked.