Game Controls
A complete reference for how to interact with Galactic Cruisers — from placing ship and scanned sector cells to using hints, navigating board sizes, and selecting your difficulty.
Touch & Mobile Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Tap an empty cell | Mark as SHIP |
| Tap a SHIP cell | Switch to SCANNED SECTOR |
| Tap a SCANNED SECTOR cell | Clear back to empty |
| Drag across cells | Fill a run with the same state set on the first cell |
Web & Desktop Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Left-click | Cycle: empty → SHIP → SCANNED SECTOR → empty |
| Right-click | Place SCANNED SECTOR directly (skip to scanned sector state) |
| Left-drag | Fill cells with SHIP along the drag path |
| Right-drag | Fill cells with SCANNED SECTOR along the drag path |
Clue cells (pre-revealed ship or scanned sector) are locked and cannot be changed by any input.
Button Reference
Reverse the last placement or run of placements made in a single drag.
Reveal one logically-forced cell. The hint system uses the same solver as the puzzle generator — it will never guess.
Start a fresh puzzle. If there are unsaved moves, a confirmation prompt appears.
Open the settings panel to change board size, difficulty, and display options.
Pause the timer and hide the board. Tap or click anywhere on the pause overlay to resume.
Board Sizes
| Size | Fleet | Clues | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6×6 | 1×3, 2×2, 3×1 | 6 row + 6 col | Starter |
| 8×8 | 1×4, 2×3, 3×2, 4×1 | 8 row + 8 col | Intermediate |
| 10×10 | 1×5, 2×4, 3×3, 4×2, 5×1 | 10 row + 10 col | Advanced |
Difficulty Levels
All puzzles solvable by count-forcing alone — no advanced techniques required. Ideal for learning the rules.
Requires diagonal isolation: ship cells force neighboring diagonal cells to scanned sector. One step beyond pure counting.
Adds endpoint deduction and gap analysis. Runs of unknown cells are evaluated against the remaining fleet to eliminate impossible placements.
May require limited hypothesis testing — try a placement and follow the chain of consequences. No randomness, but deeper logical chains.