Pond Sort

Sort the words into their nests

Think of a game of patience where the cards are words and nobody tells you the suits. That's Pond Sort. Every word on the felt belongs to a hidden group of four, and you work the groups out as you dig through the columns and turn words over from the basket. Drop a word into an empty nest and that nest becomes its group's home; add the other three and the group's name pops up in a banner. Guess wrong and the word hops back: that's a slip. We wrote every group ourselves, and a solver goes over each deal before you see it, so no word could sit in two groups and the table can always be sorted.

Today's deal is the same for everybody, five groups and four nests, and there's a ladder of levels that starts with three groups, works up to six and pays out up to three eggs for a tidy finish. Roady deals the title cards off his deck and Tiny hops into the nest after them, while Rusty peeks over the far edge of the table. During play the three of them sit on the bank below the cards: Tiny nods when a word lands, hops when you find a group and dozes if you go quiet. If you like word puzzles with a little card-table thinking in them, this one's for you. It's free on any phone or computer browser, and Ducklark, who made it, is a very small outfit on Long Island. For the finer points, read how to play Pond Sort.