Zodiac Merge rules and tips

How sliding works

Pick a direction and all sixteen squares of tiles slide that way. Two touching tiles of the same animal merge into one of the next animal. In one slide a pair merges only once, so four Rats in a row become two Oxen, not one.

If no tile moves in a direction, the turn does not count. No new tile appears either.

The order of the twelve animals

The order is the zodiac order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig. Two Rats make an Ox, two Oxen make a Tiger, and when two Dogs finally meet they make the Pig.

The Pig is the twelfth animal, so the moment a single Pig appears on the board you win. Making one Pig takes the equivalent of two thousand and forty-eight Rats, so if you do not use the whole board you get stuck along the way.

How scoring works

You score the number of the animal you just made. Merging two Rats into an Ox gives 2 points, and two Oxen into a Tiger gives 3. The last merge, two Dogs into the Pig, gives 12 points.

Sliding alone earns nothing. Points come only from merges. So if you line the board up to merge several pairs in one slide, that one move scores a lot.

New tiles and when the game ends

The board starts with two tiles, and after every move one new tile is placed in an empty square. Nine times in ten it is a Rat and one time in ten it is an Ox. Since an Ox can show up, planning as if only Rats appear will throw you off.

If there is no empty square and no two matching animals touch up, down, left or right, nothing can move and the game ends. If you keep the big animals in one corner and handle the small ones in the rows in front of it, empty squares last longer.

One board a day

The board is set by the date, so everyone gets the same starting board on the same day. A game in progress carries on, so reloading does not send you back to the start, and when the day changes you start fresh with that day's board.

That means you cannot reshuffle a board you dislike, but you can compare with other people how far up the zodiac each of you got on the same board.

Basic tips

The first thing to learn is to keep your biggest animal in one corner. A big tile in the middle is blocked on every side and has fewer places to meet its match. In a corner you only have to look after the row beside it.

To do that, it helps to use only three of the four directions. For example, if your base is the bottom left, avoid sliding up as much as you can. Saving one direction means the big animal gets pushed out of its base less often.

And keep matching animals side by side. If two Rats are apart, another animal can slip between them and they may never meet. Side by side, one slide merges them.

Advanced tips

To raise one animal you need two of the one below, and each of those needs two of the one below that. So making the Pig at the top takes the equivalent of 2,048 Rats. The board has only sixteen squares, so you cannot lay them all out at once. You build up by merging and clearing again and again.

The score is the number of the animal you make, so the bigger the animal, the steeper the points. Two Rats into an Ox gives 2, but two Dogs into the Pig gives 12. Adding up every point you collect on the way to a single Pig gives 6,130.

So do not rush the big animals. If you clear out the bottom to build one animal higher up, the board loosens and all you gain is more room for new tiles. It lasts longer to keep the lower animals thick and let them get pushed up naturally.

Where people get stuck

The board is full but the game is not over. Even with no empty square, you can still slide if two matching animals touch. Try all four directions and one of them will move.

I slid and nothing happened. If no tile can move that way and there is no pair to merge, the board stays as it is and no new tile appears. You lose nothing, so try another direction.

My big animal got pushed out of its base. This happens when you press a direction you meant to save. Undo last move has a set share per day, so once it runs out you have to rebuild the board from where it stands. Work out how many moves it takes to steer the big animal back to the corner before you go.