nil studio

Coming soon to iPhone, iPad and Mac

Acequia

Pour in the right order.

  1. Tip a pot, and all its water runs out along the groove, a drop for each blue band.
  2. A pot with room drinks what it can.
  3. A full pot lets the water pass.
  4. A rocker turns the water, then swings the other way.
  5. A plant drinks a drop for each bud.
  6. The garden blooms when every plant does.
  7. The order of pours is the puzzle.

Scroll to pour

An Acequia garden in bloom: clay pots, a wooden rocker and plants in magenta flower on a courtyard floor of limestone and patterned tiles.

Every drop goes somewhere.

Tip a clay pot and its water runs along channels carved in a courtyard floor. Full pots let it pass. Pots with room drink it. A wooden rocker turns it, then swings, so the next pour turns the other way.

Pour in the wrong order and the water is spent before it reaches the plant that needed it. Pour in the right one and the whole garden blooms.

Seventy-four gardens, from one pot and one plant to deep courtyards that need a plan.

Acequia

ah-SEH-kya · a channel for water

A channel that carries water to a garden. Spanish took the word from the Arabic as-sāqiya, the water-bringer, and in Granada one still waters the gardens of the Alhambra.

Each piece keeps one rule.

Nothing is hidden and nothing is random. Once you know what a piece does, the garden tells you everything, if you read it before you pour.

The first two chapters

  • The potTip it and all its water runs out along the groove, a drop for each blue band.
  • The plantIt drinks a drop for each bud. The garden blooms when every plant does.
  • The rockerIt turns the water, then swings, so its next turn goes the other way.
  • Stones and the edgeWater that runs off the board or meets a stone is lost.

Eight more chapters bring six more, and time, counted in pours

  • The fallen leafIt keeps a full pot shut until water running past washes it off.
  • The sluice gateIt lets water cross while the little pot that holds it up is full.
  • The thirsty plantIt loses a leaf after every pour that leaves it short, and withers on its last.
  • The bulbIt sleeps for some pours, and water runs over it until it wakes.
  • The water-clock gateIt rises and drops with the pours, as its clock keeps time.
  • The cracked jarIt loses a drop after every pour.

Look, pour, bloom.

Hold a pot and the garden shows where its water will run before you let it go. There is no timer and nothing to rush. Undo is always there, and Hint tells you whether the garden can still bloom.

Acequia on iPhone: garden 22, a pot held, its route drawn as a line to the plant beyond a sluice gate.
Look. Hold a pot and see where the water will go.
Acequia on iPhone: the pot tips and two drops of water run along the groove toward the lifted gate.
Pour. The water runs just as you saw it would.
Acequia on iPhone: the garden in bloom, and a card that reads In bloom, with the idea the garden taught.
Bloom. Every garden ends with the idea it taught you.

Take your time.

  • Seventy-four gardensin ten chapters, from gentle to deep.
  • Two chapters freeand one of the hard gardens after them, to try before you buy.
  • One purchaseopens the rest, on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
  • No ads, no subscriptionand no timers. Your progress stays on your device.
The Acequia icon: a clay pot pours water along a channel, and a wooden rocker turns it up to a flower.

Coming soon to iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Acequia is made by one person at Nil Studio, with care for every garden.

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