Picky Parking

The pitch

Picky Parking is a relaxing logic puzzle where every move uses precious fuel. Guide colorful toy cars into a perfect parking arrangement: use all their fuel, place one car in each row and column, and keep cars from touching—even at the corners. Learn the rules through five quick interactive lessons, then tackle Easy, Normal, and Hard puzzles. Undo moves, return a car to its starting point, or use a hint when you need a little help.

Controls & how it runs

Drag a car to a reachable square, or click/tap a car and then its destination. Each square traveled uses one fuel. To solve a puzzle, use all the cars' fuel, leave exactly one car in every row and column, and keep all cars apart, including diagonally. Cars marked with a lock cannot move. On desktop, use number keys to select cars and arrow keys or WASD to move. Z undoes a move, R resets the puzzle, H requests a hint, and E opens Settings. On touch devices, use the on-screen controls. Returning a car to its start also rewinds all moves made after that car's first trip. After the free hints are used, watching a video for another hint is optional; you can always keep playing without it.

Getting a run going takes exactly one press: Press start, up top, and the game boots inside this page — nothing downloads in the background and no form wants your details before the first jump. The cabinet is drawn for a flexible screen and listens to mouse, keyboard or touch, whichever the game prefers. It reshapes itself for tall and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all get the full picture. Given a fullscreen button, use it — scores look better at full size, that's just science.

Pro tips for arcade cabinets

• Treat your first run as a scouting mission. Arcade cabinets hide their cruelty in the second minute, not the first — learn where the difficulty spikes before you start chasing numbers.
• Small scores compound. Grab the easy pickups on every pass instead of gambling the whole run on one heroic line; heroes respawn, banked points don't evaporate.
• Watch the edges of the screen. In classic arcade design the next problem almost always enters from somewhere you weren't looking — build the habit of scanning the borders.

Picky Parking — quick-fire questions

Does Picky Parking cost anything to play?

Not a token. The cabinet is free from the first run to the five-hundredth — no wallet, no sign-up, no toll booth hiding three levels in. The adverts around the page are what keep the floor's lights on.

What sort of game is Picky Parking?

It stands on our Arcade row — that's the family it plays most like. The pitch above is the publisher's own rundown of what it throws at you and what it hands back.

Can I play Picky Parking on my phone?

Happily, yes. It runs inside the browser on phones and tablets the same way it does on a computer. It reshapes itself for tall and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all get the full picture.

Do I need to install anything first?

Nothing whatsoever. Picky Parking is an HTML5 game: hit the start button and it boots on this page, and shutting the tab sweeps the cabinet clean behind you.

Before you wander off

Personal best banked, or still chasing it? Either way the full Arcade row is powered on and waiting — The main floor: 415 cabinets of pure arcade stock — the quick, the loud and the gloriously unfair. If it beeps, flashes and dares you to beat a number, it lives on this row.