Does a parked piece count as a neighbour?

No. Only seated pieces open neighbouring positions. Parked pieces are useful for sorting but do not count as progress.

Why are there no outlines when I select a piece in the tray?

The highlight window needs a position on the board. Carry the piece over the board, or select a loose piece already lying there. The window is not anchored by a tray selection alone.

Tip 3 of 5 · Connected pieces

Grow the picture from pieces already down

The guide and all jigsaw tips

The full guide Playing on Puzzled

Jigsaw tips

A middle piece needs a seated neighbour directly above, below, left or right. A diagonal neighbour is not enough. Once a piece seats, it can open new positions around it.

The dashed outlines in the game show reachable empty positions near your pointer while you carry a piece. They do not identify that piece's answer. A tray piece selected without being carried over the board does not show the same window.

See when the dashed outlines appear during play

Example 1: One neighbour opens the next square

Step 1 of 3

Row 1, column 2 is seated. Row 2, column 2, directly below it, now has the neighbour it needs.

Start with the border piece at row 1, column 2. The square below it is reachable; the square diagonally below and to its right is not yet reachable.

After the next piece is seated, the picture can grow sideways as well as down. You do not have to wait for the rest of the border.

Try it yourself

Try the reasoning yourself. Choose an answer to see the explanation.

Only the left-edge piece at row 3, column 1 is seated. The candidate labels give their intended positions. Choose the one middle piece that can join it directly, then place it.

Choose a piece, then tap its square

Untimed practice: nothing here touches your games.

How to spot it faster

Look just beyond a region you have already built.
Check above, below, left and right; ignore diagonal contact when checking whether a piece can seat.
A reachable position is not necessarily the answer for your fragment. Check the picture before placing it.

Common mistakes

Starting a floating island in the middle

You can park pieces together, but they cannot seat until they connect to a seated neighbour. Build a path from the frame or another seated region.

Reading the dashed square as an answer

An outline means the position is reachable. It does not mean the fragment you are carrying belongs there.

Questions

Try it

Start a 16-piece board with one edge piece, then look for a middle piece directly beside it. Check that each new placement has a seated neighbour, not just a diagonal one.

Play solo on 16 pieces