How Sandfold works
Press and hold on a shape to pour powder in the selected colour. Powder piles up and spreads, and chalk lines hold it back up to a height. Pour past that and it spills into the next shape. Fill every shape to its line, in its own colour, using the limited pots, and the diya lights.
Pouring
Press and hold to pour, drag to move the stream, and lift to stop. Tap a pot to change colour; each pot’s heap shrinks as you use it. Undo and redo any pour, or sweep the floor and start again with full pots. Hints are free: a ring shows a good place to pour next.
Chalk, near-spill and spill
Chalk lines hold powder up to a height. When a shape’s own powder reaches 85 % of the chalk height at its rim, the chalk glows in diya flame and you feel a light tick. On small mirrored shapes the spill can follow within a fraction of a second, or come with no glow first. Pour on and powder crosses into the next shape; the status line names it, and Undo gets that pour back.
Filled, muddied, complete and neat
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Filled | At least 95 % of the shape’s cells reach the line. Its chalk doubles in weight. |
| Muddied | Other colours make up more than 3 % of what the shape can hold, and its chalk turns dashed. Less than that is forgiven. |
| Complete | Every shape is filled and none is muddied: the diya lights. |
| Neat | Complete with not a grain over the chalk or off the floor: a marigold garland on its courtyard tile. |
Mirror pour
From chapter 2, the Fold chip shows how many ways your pour is mirrored: 4 or 6 in Mirror, 8 in Eight Ways and some Threshold stencils. While your finger is down, the mirror lines show as faint chalk. Every stream draws from the same pot, so an 8-way pour empties a pot eight times as fast.
Pots and the planner
Each pot holds what our planner needed to finish the stencil, plus a margin: 30 % on gentle stencils, 18 % on steady ones, 10 % on tricky ones and 5 % on the hardest. The planner runs the same powder engine as the game, so every stencil can be finished with its pots. If a pot runs dry while a shape still needs it, Undo or Sweep gives the powder back.
The Daily rangoli and the Diwali days
The Daily follows the date on your phone and is the same for everyone on that date. Dates through 31 December 2028 come from a reviewed table inside the app; later dates are composed on the phone from the same approved motifs. Diwali days come from a date table in the app for 2026 to 2031.
Inputs and limits
Mirroring multiplies everything: an 8-way pour empties a pot eight times as fast, and a still finger on a small mirrored shape can spill in a sixtieth of a second, sometimes before the chalk glows. Every stencil can be finished with its pots, but a neat finish was found on only 21 of 50.
- Fast spills in mirrored stencils. In our engine test of all 50 chapter and Diwali stencils (full pots, the finger held still at one point in a shape until the first grain crossed chalk or left the floor), every 8-way stencil had a shape that spilled within 0.15 seconds. Ten stencils with 4-, 6- or 8-way mirroring had a shape that spilled in the very first step of the simulation, a sixtieth of a second. On one-way stencils the fastest spill took 13 steps, about 0.22 seconds. The chalk glow can come too late or not at all: on mirrored stencils, 28 test presses spilled before or in the same step as the glow, and 193 of 551 spills came less than 0.2 seconds after the glow, or with no glow first. On one-way stencils the glow came first every time in the test. Pour in short taps.
- A neat finish is checked only on some stencils. Our planner found a neat finish on 21 of the 50 chapter and Diwali stencils: all 10 in First Petals, 8 in Mirror, none in Eight Ways, 2 in Threshold and 1 in the Diwali set. The others have not been checked for one. On many later stencils, a little stray powder is part of finishing.
- What counts as done. A shape counts as filled when 95 in 100 of its cells reach the line. It is muddied when other colours make up more than 3 % of what it can hold; a smaller dusting is forgiven.
- Pot sizes. Pots hold what our planner needed plus a margin: 30 % on the gentlest stencils, down to 5 % on the hardest.
- The Daily follows your phone’s date. It changes at your local midnight. You can pour any earlier day of the current month; once the month ends, its missed days close.
- Diwali days. They come from a date table in the app (2026 to 2031), using the phone’s date. Only rangolis finished inside those days get the dated keepsake frame. The Diwali set itself can be poured any day.
- Chapters open in order. Each chapter opens when you have finished seven rangolis of the one before.
- Reset. Reset progress locks chapters 2 to 4 again; your courtyard stays unless you also choose to clear it.
- Language and devices. English only. Android 8.0 or later, played in portrait on phones.
Pour in short taps. Mind the chalk.
