Why the Apsis hint is never wrong

I wanted one promise from the hint in Apsis: following it can never cost you a star. In most puzzle games that is hard to promise, because a move that looks good now can ruin the board three moves later. In Apsis it comes almost for free, from the idea that runs through the whole game.

What lights up

Tap the light bulb at the top right of the play screen and the sky dims, except for a circle of light around one arrow. That arrow pulses gently, and its way out is drawn over the dimming: the same dotted line and band you see when you hold an arrow.

The hint never launches anything for you. Any touch puts it away and still counts, so you can tap the lit arrow straight away, or keep looking and do something else.

Free means free for good

Whenever some arrow is free, the hint lights a free one. Nothing lies in its band all the way to the rim, and nothing else holds it back, such as a key still on the board or a lower number that has not left. So the tap it suggests gets out.

It is also safe for the rest of the level. An arrow leaving only ever clears space, so an arrow that is free stays free however many others leave, and launching the hinted arrow can never trap another one or lead to a dead end.

That holds in every chapter. Each rule I added, from locks to wormholes to prisms, only ever lets go of an arrow, and I turned down rules that would have broken it, like a ring that turns by itself.

It is also checked rather than claimed. Every level is played through by doing nothing but what the hint says, and every one comes out clear with all three stars.

Choosing among the free arrows

Most skies have several free arrows at once, and any of them would be a correct hint. But the first one in the list is often an arrow on the outer ring pointing straight out, which nothing is waiting on: correct, and it teaches nothing.

So the hint ranks the free arrows:

1. How many arrows it frees outright. If a free arrow is the only thing holding another one back, launching it frees that one at once, and the free arrow that frees the most wins.
2. How many arrows it holds back at all. A tie goes to the arrow that sits in the most other arrows’ ways, even if they have other blockers too.
3. Its place in the list. A final tie goes to the first, so the same board always gets the same hint.

The result points at the start of a chain, which is the move a good player looks for.

When no arrow is free

Some chapters build skies where, at some point, nothing is free at all.

In the brittle arrows chapter, the way through a jam is to hit a brittle arrow on purpose, which breaks it for a heart. Which one you break can matter, so the hint lights the arrow whose bounce breaks the right one. The game counts that heart as kept, so the stars are safe.

With asteroids, an arrow that flies into one smashes it, both are gone, and no heart is lost. At a jam the hint lights the arrow to spend on it.

Heart arrows win back a lost heart when they leave, so while you still have all three hearts, the hint leaves them alone.

And if your misses have left too few hearts for the break a level needs, no tap can save the try, and the hint says so: “No arrow can get out. Restart and try again”.

Awkward moments

Ask while an arrow is still flying or springing back from a miss, and the hint waits until everything is still before it answers. Out of hearts, there is nothing worth lighting, so it says that instead: “Out of hearts. Retry puts every arrow back”.

What a hint costs

Never a heart and never a star.

Every hint on levels 1 to 15 is free, as many as you like, while you learn to read the sky. After that, the Google Play version gives you 3 free hints a day, back at midnight on your phone’s clock, and the bulb shows how many are left, or a small play mark when the next one needs a video.

Once those are used, the hint asks whether you would like to watch a short video for it. Say Not now and nothing happens, and if no video can play, say because you are offline, you get the hint anyway. Asking again for the arrow already lit is always free.

With the Supporter pack every hint is free.

How I use it

The hint is most useful as a teacher. When I am stuck, I ask, then look at the lit arrow and the arrows near its path, and work out which ones it was holding back. And when I want three stars, I ask rather than guess, because a guessed tap can miss and a hinted one cannot cost a star.

How stars work is in Hearts, misses and stars, and why every level can be cleared at all is in Built backwards.