Every ring touches a fish: the rules of Seiche

The first pond in Seiche has two ripples and one fish. Each ripple draws a ring of tiles round it, and the two rings cross on a single tile. That tile is where the fish is, and that is the whole game.

One rule: every ring touches a fish

Every ripple on the pond draws a ring, a rounded square of tiles at the same distance all the way round. The ring is exactly as wide as it needs to be to reach the nearest fish, so:

every ring has exactly one fish on it
no fish ever hides inside a ring
fish hide only on the rings

A fish can sit on more than one ring, and that is where rings meet. So the tiles worth looking at are the ones the rings pass over, and the places where two or more of them cross are the first to check.

Seiche's level 1 with two rings meeting on one tile, and the same pond after one cast

No numbers on the board

Seiche never asks you to count. Each ring has its own colour and its own mark, a circle, a square, a triangle and so on, drawn on its ripple and on every tile it crosses. A tile on two rings is split into a band for each, so you can see at a glance which rings pass over it, whatever colours you see.

Tap a ripple to pick out its ring on its own. Its tiles brighten and the other rings dim. Tap it again to let go.

Calm water

Water that no fish could be in is drawn calm. That is the water inside a ring, the water off every ring, and once a ring has its fish, the rest of that ring. Tap calm water and the tile flashes with the reason, such as “Nothing hides inside a ring.” or “That ring already has its fish.” It costs nothing, so tap whenever you are not sure why a tile is calm.

The first three ponds

Level 1 comes with a short guide. It shows the rule with the pond lit, points out the hint and Restart, and then a ghost finger shows you the tile where the two rings meet. How to play in Settings brings that guide back whenever you want it.

The next two ponds each teach one more line, shown under the pond:

Level 2: “Nothing hides inside a ring.” Without that rule, more than one answer would fit.
Level 3: “Each ring has exactly one fish.” Without it, a ring could hold two.

Seiche's levels 2 and 3, each with a few coloured rings over the pale green tiles

Casting, misses and stars

Tap a tile to cast there. If a fish is there it jumps out, shows its kind and size, and swims into your album. Its rings go calm, and the count under Fish left drops by one.

If the tile is empty, the line lands with a soft plop and the miss stays marked on the tile. A miss costs a star and nothing else, and the pond never ends early:

Three stars: every fish caught without a miss.
Two stars: one miss.
One star: more than one.

There is no undo, because a miss shows you something true, that the tile is empty, and taking it back would make guessing free. Restart begins the pond again whenever you like, with all three stars back.

When you are stuck

The light bulb at the top right is the hint. It lights one tile where a fish must be, along with the ring it is about, and tells you why in one line above the pond. The reason is the next thing a careful look at the board would show, such as a ring with only one open tile left, or one fish left sitting where every waiting ring meets. So the hint never asks you to guess, and once you have read its reason, you can often find the next fish yourself.

Every hint on the first 15 levels is free. After that the Android app gives you 3 free hints a day, and a hint beyond those asks for a short video you can choose to watch. With the Supporter pack every hint is free.

The Seiche hint lighting one tile where rings meet, with its reason written above the pond

Reading a bigger pond

Later ponds have more fish, more rings and wider water, but never a new rule. A few habits help:

Start where a ring has only one open tile left. Its fish is there.
Look for tiles where several rings cross. One fish there can settle all of them.
Count what is left. If there are as many open tiles as fish still to catch, every one of them holds a fish.
With one fish left, it sits where every waiting ring meets.
On the hardest ponds, think one step ahead. Suppose a fish sits on a tile, and check whether every other ring could still get its one fish.

Every pond has exactly one answer, and it can be read from the board without a guess.

The album

Every fish you catch goes into the album, open from the title screen. There are eight kinds, from common minnows and perch to rare fish and one legendary one, and the rarer kinds swim in ponds with more fish. The album keeps how many of each you have caught and the biggest one, and shows the kinds you have not met yet as silhouettes.

The Seiche album with five kinds of fish found and three still to find

A pond a day

Once you finish the first chapter, a daily pond opens. It is the same for everyone, small on Monday and growing through the week, with a clock, a streak to keep and a calendar of past days. The daily pond has no hint.

There is more about the game on its page.