Rung Rings: Support
Rung Rings is a calm puzzle game for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. Turn the rings until the pattern lines up. Each of the ten worlds borrows its colours and patterns from a living craft of Pakistan, a country in South Asia, and each has its own rule for how the rings behave.
Need help, found a bug, or have a thought? Write to hahmed149@outlook.com. A reply usually takes a few days.
The basics
How do I turn a ring?
Drag a ring around the centre, or flick it and let it spin. It settles on a notch. A turn that changes the ring counts as one move. A ring that settles back where it was does not count.
What do the stars mean?
Every level has a "par", the fewest moves that can solve it. Solve in par moves (or fewer) for three stars. One or two moves over par gives two stars, three or four over gives one, and five or more over gives no stars and you still win. Using the Reveal hint caps a level at two stars. Your best result is kept: replaying never lowers it.
What are points?
Each level is also scored out of 1000 points. You lose 100 for every move over par, and nothing else: hints and Undo do not change it. Points are a finer grain under the stars. They unlock nothing, there is no timer and nobody sees your score. Your best score per level is kept.
Is there a move limit?
No. Take as many moves as you need; stars and points reward the fewest. If a level will not come, the hint tray offers Skip for now after a few restarts; the level stays open on the grid.
Does it run on iPad?
Yes. Rung Rings runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, in any orientation. The board fills the screen you give it. If you fold or unfold an iPhone Duo, or resize the window in Split View or Stage Manager, the board re-sizes around you and nothing restarts: your level, moves and timer carry on. A ring you are turning at that moment springs back to where it started, and that turn does not count as a move.
Why do some levels look different?
Version 3.3 re-cut the last four cloths of each world so the end of a world is gentler. Your stars and points on them are kept; replay one to improve them.
Hints, spools and points
Tap the Hint button to open the hint tray. Hints cost spools, a small in-game token. You choose how much help you want:
- Nudge (1 spool each time): shows which ring to turn.
- Show (2 spools each time): shows which ring, which way, and how many notches.
- Reveal (3 spools, once per attempt): ghosts the solved pose. Caps the level at two stars.
- Undo (free, every time): takes back your last move.
Restarting a level starts a fresh attempt, so Reveal can be bought once more. Spools already spent stay spent. Hints are always optional. When your spools run out, the three hints dim, and Undo, Restart and Skip for now stay available, so you can always finish a level or set it aside.
How do I get spools?
A new save starts with 5 spools; a save that has already been played starts with 10. After that a spool comes from:
- Coming back each day: one spool on days 1 to 3 of a daily streak, two on days 4 to 6, and three from day 7 on while the streak holds. The first visit to the title screen each day counts.
- Today's cloth: one spool the first time you weave the day's cloth.
- A world's boss: one spool the first time you solve it.
- A whole world at three stars: one spool the moment every level in it has three stars.
You can hold at most 15 spools. Anything earned past 15 is not kept. A missed day starts the count again, quietly. The game never sells spools in this version.
The ten worlds and their rules
- World 1, Sindh Dawn (ajrak block printing, Sindh, a province in southeastern Pakistan): free rings. Turn each ring until the print lines up.
- World 2, Cholistan Nights (chunri tie-dye, Sindh and Bahawalpur, by the Cholistan desert in southern Punjab, Pakistan): knots. Drag a knotted ring and both of its neighbours turn with it, live, by the same amount.
- World 3, Punjab Garden (phulkari embroidery, the Punjab, a region shared by Pakistan and India): stepped rings. They turn only in whole steps of two notches, like counted stitches.
- World 4, Thar Mirrors (mirror work and ralli quilts, Tharparkar, a desert district of Sindh in the Thar, which spans southeast Pakistan and northwest India): locks. A dull ring will not turn until the neighbour that holds its key is solved and at rest.
- World 5, Highway Bazaar (truck art, Karachi and Rawalpindi, two cities of Pakistan): gears. Meshed rings turn together, in opposite directions.
- World 6, Lahore Lattice (tilework and strapwork of Lahore's Walled City; Lahore is the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province): straps. A gold strap laid across a ring holds it still while the neighbouring ring that holds the strap sits at home. Turn that neighbour off home and the strap goes slack; turn the freed ring; then turn the neighbour home again to lay the strap back. A knot or a gear can still turn a strapped ring.
- World 7, Multan Blue (blue pottery, glazed and fired by the kashigars of Multan, a city in southern Punjab, and of Hala in Sindh): one-way rings. A ring marked with chevrons turns only the way they point (counter-clockwise). Pushed the other way it strains a little and springs back, and the move does not count. To go back a notch, go the long way round. A knot or a gear cannot turn it backward either.
- World 8, Hala Loom (susi and khes, striped and checked cloth woven on pit looms by the weavers of Hala, Hyderabad and Thatta in Sindh, and of Multan and Bahawalpur in Punjab; khes is a Punjab tradition, shared with Indian Punjab): selvedges. A ring with a selvedge carries a striped block with small teeth, and a brass peg is fixed to the board beside it. The ring turns freely until its block meets the peg; there it stops under your finger with a soft knock, the teeth light up, and it goes no further. Nothing counts as a move until the ring lands on a new notch. To reach the far side, go back round the other way. A knot or a gear cannot pull a ring through its selvedge either: a pull that would carry a neighbour past its peg stops at the peg too.
- World 9, Balochistan Stars (Balochi needlework, stitched by the women of Balochistan, a province in southwestern Pakistan; shared with Baloch communities in Iran and Afghanistan): the light. These rings have no gold marks to line up. A line of light comes in from the rim at the top of the board. It passes through a ring when that ring's small mirror marks sit at the top, and stops at the edge of the first ring that is turned wrong. Turn each ring until the light passes, working from the rim in: the level is solved when the light reaches the centre. The light follows your finger while you drag, so you can see a ring is right before you let go.
- World 10, Swat Valley (Swati embroidery, stitched by the women of the Swat Valley, a valley in the mountains of northern Pakistan; embroidery from the Hazara region is a separate tradition): samplers and copies. A copy ring is tied to its sampler, two rings away, by a braided thread drawn across the ring between. Drag the sampler and its copy turns with it, live, by the same amount, and the braid lights up; the pull counts as one move. Drag the copy and only the copy turns. The braid never pulls the ring between (a knot on the sampler still pulls its neighbours, as in World 2). A sampler that is pulled by a knot does not carry its copy along.
These are all ten of Pakistan's worlds, 100 levels in all.
Every rule is taught by a short tutorial the first time you meet it. Each one waits for you: tap Show me to see the move, then Try it (or Watch again), and Start level when you are ready. Nothing moves on by itself. You can replay any of them in Settings, under Tutorials.
The story
Nani's bundle: five unfinished cloths, each remembering where it came from. When the quilt they make is folded, a second potli (a small cloth bundle) turns up in its binding, with five more cloths from the roads north and west, from Lahore, Multan, Hala, Balochistan and the Swat Valley. When the last of them is done, the second potli closes with an epilogue of its own, and the ten cloths make one quilt. The story appears between levels, never during one, and each card waits until you tap it. You can replay any of it, and read every craft fact you have unlocked, from the Bundle button on the title screen or Settings, under Story. The Bundle shows the second potli as a second road under the first, and ends with Places: one line on where each place in the game is.
Countries
The game is organised by country. On the Levels screen, tap the country name at the top (it reads like "Pakistan · 10 worlds · ★ 54 / 300") to open Countries. Pakistan is the first country; more will follow. Its tile shows a patch for each of its ten cloths. When every level is woven, the tile says so: “10 worlds · 100 levels · all woven”. The "More countries · Coming soon" tile is a promise, not a button: there is nothing behind it yet.
Swatches, perfect weaves and sharing
Opening a finished cloth. Tap any cloth you have finished, on the Levels screen or in the Bundle's row of daily cloths, to see it whole: its medallion and, for a level, your best stars and score and its fact (a daily cloth shows its date, no stars or score), and a Replay. Replay weaves that cloth again, and your best stays as it was. Today's cloth can be replayed; an older daily cloth can be looked at, but not replayed.
Perfect weaves. A perfect weave is a win with three stars, a thousand points and no hint used. It leaves a gold mark on its cloth, and a later win that is not perfect never takes the mark away. Countries counts the perfect weaves of each country, for example “47 of 100 perfect weaves”. When every cloth of a country is perfectly woven, that country's tile is bound in gold.
Sharing. Share opens the standard iOS share sheet with a picture of the cloth: the cloth, its world and its country, your best stars on it (a daily cloth has none), and the gold mark if it is a perfect weave. The picture carries the cloth, its name and place, your stars and the game's name — no personal or identifying information. Choose Save Image, Messages, Mail or AirDrop from the sheet as you like; the game does not see what you pick.
Updating
Updating keeps everything: stars, points, the story you have seen and the tutorials you have done carry over. Spools are new in 3.1: every save is given its starting batch the first time it opens in this version. A game that had finished World 5 opens World 6, one that had finished World 7 opens World 8, and one that had finished World 9 opens World 10. If you play on two devices with iCloud, update both. A device still on version 1 leaves its own progress alone and Settings there says "Update the app to sync" until it is updated.
iCloud sync
What it does. If you are signed in to iCloud, your progress is also kept in your own iCloud key-value storage (Apple's servers, your Apple Account, unreadable to the developer). A new phone, or a reinstall, picks it up automatically.
Turning it on. On your iPhone or iPad, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, and make sure iCloud is on and that Rung Rings is allowed under apps using iCloud. Settings inside the game shows whether sync is on.
It is optional. Signed out of iCloud, the game works exactly the same, and progress stays on this device only.
Two devices. Progress from both devices is merged: the best stars and points per level win, and nothing is lost. Sync is handled by iOS in the background and can take a few minutes. Opening and closing the app helps.
Newer version on another device. If another device saved progress with a newer version of the app, Settings says "Update the app to sync", and your local progress is left alone.
Resetting your progress
Open Settings, tap Reset progress, then confirm in the second step. This clears levels, stars, points, spools, tutorial and story flags on this device. If iCloud sync is on, the reset is recorded there too, so your other devices will not bring the old progress back. It cannot be undone. Deleting the app also removes the on-device data; with iCloud on, reinstalling restores your progress from iCloud.
Sound, haptics and Reduce Motion
- Silent switch. The game's sounds obey the silent switch and mix with other audio, so music you are playing carries on. Flip the switch to silent and the game is silent. Haptics still work on iPhone unless you turn them off.
- Sound and haptics can be turned off separately in Settings.
- Reduce Motion. If Reduce Motion is on in iOS Accessibility settings, the game skips particles, idle spinning and parallax and fades story cards instead of sliding them. Nothing about the puzzles changes.
Reporting a bug
Please email hahmed149@outlook.com with:
- the version shown at the bottom of Settings (for example "Rung Rings 3.3 (30)"),
- your device (iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad) and iOS version,
- what you were doing, and the level (for example "World 3, level 7") if it is about a level.
A screenshot or screen recording helps a lot. The app does not send any reports itself, so we only know about a problem if you tell us.
Privacy
Rung Rings has no accounts, no ads and no tracking, collects no personal data and has no network code of its own. See the privacy policy.