I have the app on my IPad, don’t play regularly. It can be very similar to Connections, or can be played at two easier levels. When I play, I almost always play the middle difficulty.
There’s a new game every day, and you can access the three most recent day’s games. I’m showing screenshots for the April 8 game. Once you choose the date you want, you get the difficulty choice:
You cannot change difficulty for a puzzle once you choose it, but can choose a different difficulty with each new puzzle. This is what you see with “Smooth Sailing”.
The idea is that there are three meaningful groups of 4, plus 4 other red herrings. You want to get the meaningful groups vertically in the three left columns.
With “Smooth Sailing”, you have a big advantage: they tell you three members of the leftmost group and two members of the second group. So for April 8, you see
You drag an item to where you want it to be (which moves the item already there to the spot you dragged from). If you complete a group of four, that success is immediately identified. (“Grouping” the four red herrings does not count as completing a group). I believe you have to put the last meaningful group, in “Smooth Sailing” in the third column, not the far right column.
when you are done, you see
Not that it affects play much, but as soon as you complete a group, you not only know that you completed it, you also know the rationale for that group.
Unlike Connections, no concept of strikes. Play until you solve it or quit. And no convenient way to share successes.
“Safe Harbor” is just like “Smooth Sailing”, except you are also told the rationale for each category.
“Deep Water” is no hints: no starting answers already placed, no rationales. You still get told whenever you successfully complete a group. For the three meaningful groups, they need to go in the three left columns, but which column a group goes in doesn’t matter.
Enjoy!
