Haniport Levee for users of Mac OS X

Haniport Levee is an application that lets you solve an intriguing puzzle that we call Switchers. Switchers presents a chessboard filled with gems (but don't panic - this isn't chess). Some of the gems are crystal blue, and some are rose red.

To the left of the board are puzzle pieces that can be moved anywhere on the board (provided another puzzle piece isn't already played there). When a puzzle piece moves onto the board, it switches nearby pieces to their opposite color. Each kind of piece affects the board in a different way. For example, in the puzzle shown above, the white piece will switch gems using a pattern in the shape of a plus sign, and the orange piece will switch gems using a pattern in the shape of a square.

Regarding pieces and their patterns – the symbols on each piece are designed to help you remember the pattern that goes with each piece. For example the white piece has a plus sign on it, and when placed on the board it switches gems in the shape of a plus sign. The orange piece has a square on it and when placed on the board it switches gems in the shape of a square. You can also see what a piece does just by dragging it around on the chessboard.

It's easy to see that if the white piece is placed in the lower left corner, and the orange piece is placed near the lower right corner, all of the rose red gems will turn to crystal blue and the puzzle will be solved.

The next example is a bit more challenging. In this one, the same two puzzle pieces are provided, but the shapes are not easily visible. This has happened because some of the gems have been switched twice, and are crystal blue instead of rose red.

Just a little bit of trial and error will let you find the right position for the white piece, and then the position of the orange piece is easy to see.

There's lots more information describing the puzzle pieces and features of the game and application available in the help browser when Haniport Levee is running.

Regarding Switchers – Haniport Levee is the trademarked name of our application, whereas Switchers is the name we've given to the puzzle itself, just in case we might someday want to add a few additional puzzles.