ChitraYatra: Glass Puzzle

ChitraYatra is a calm puzzle of stained glass. Every window is a drawing cut into hexagonal panes. Turn them, trade them or carry them home until the lead lines meet — and each closed shape lights up in its own colour. A WINDOW FOR EVERY STATE Choose from a map of India. Every state and union territory opens its own art: kolam from Tamil Nadu, pookalam from Kerala, mandana from Rajasthan, the woven puan of Mizoram, Phulkari from Punjab, Aipan from Uttarakhand, the lagoons of Lakshadweep and more — 145 windows. Or browse the gallery, shelf by shelf: birds, plants, kolams, looms, walls and shores. FOUR MODES Easy: turn each pane in place. Medium: carry panes home from a tray. Tricky: trade two panes at a time. Hard: turn whole flowers of seven panes at once. Each is shown once, by hand, the first time you play it. The Hint is always free, and "Show me how" plays the next moves and tells you what each was read from. ARTISAN: SCENES OF INDIA A second way to play: a painted scene of a place — Hampi at dusk, the tea hills of Munnar, the Taj at dawn, the living root bridges of Meghalaya — cut into hexagonal pieces. Drag them home; pieces that belong together join and move as one. Choose 54, 77 or 126 pieces. Every scene waits on one wall, finished or half made. MADE TO BE CALM No timers. No scores. No lives, no streaks, no ads. Leave anything half made and it waits for you exactly as you left it. Four scores, one for each quarter of the country, open up as the glass fills in. A night look for the evening. Keep a picture of a finished window, if you like. WHAT IS FOR SALE Every window and every scene is free. Optional: ChitraYatra Plus adds "Solve it for me" and six backgrounds; finishes for the lead and glass are sold singly or as a set; window packs of new windows, like Festivals of Light, are sold whole — nothing already free is ever put in one. Keepsakes are earned, never bought. MADE WITH CARE Most windows are drawn by our own code in each tradition's grammar; each one inspired by a living art says so, and says it is not an example of it. A few were drafted with AI assistance, and those say so too. The 24 Artisan scenes are AI-generated paintings, made from our prompts and chosen one by one; each says so. The music was generated with AI from our prompts, then looped and mastered by us. No deities, no sacred diagrams. EASY ON THE EYES AND HANDS Honours your phone's reduced-motion and text-size settings; nothing depends on colour alone (the lead lines carry every answer); hold a pane to turn it back; separate Sound, Music and Haptics switches. The map follows the Survey of India's boundaries. State boundaries: DataMeet India community (github.com/datameet/maps), CC BY 4.0.