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How to play Sunloaf

A visual guide · Build your first long nap

Your goal

Cats earn while they sleep in the sun.

A band of sunlight crosses the room as the day passes. A cat earns only while it is asleep on a lit tile, and the longer it stays put the more each turn is worth. You get one action a turn, and moving a cat wakes it, so the hardest part is deciding which cat to disturb.

36The sun is here nowOnly the cat in the light is earning

01Move a cat into the light

Tap the cat, then tap where it should go

36Tap a cat, then tap a ringIts own row and column only, never a diagonal
Legal squares light up along its row and column. Cats never move diagonally, and they cannot pass through furniture or another cat. Tapping anywhere else just clears the selection. A simplified teaching room.

Nothing moves until you act. There is no clock, so you can look as long as you like. A tap that is not a legal move costs you nothing at all.

02Then leave it alone

The purr ladder

A ginger cat, sitting up awake
Just movedpays 0 a turn
A ginger cat, settled into a loaf with its paws tucked under
1 to 2 turns stillpays 10 to 20 a turn
A ginger cat, curled into a circle, asleep
3 to 4 turns stillpays 30 to 50 a turn
A ginger cat, curled into a tight ball with its nose tucked away, deeply asleep
5 turnspays 70 a turn
A ginger cat, curled into a tight ball with its nose tucked away, deeply asleep
6 turns or morepays 100 a turn
Each turn a cat stays still, its pose changes and its next turn is worth more. The jump from a five turn nap to a six turn nap is the biggest one in the game. These figures are for a cat sleeping on its own.
  • Use Let them sleep to pass a single turn.
  • Use Doze to pass several at once. It stops as soon as something needs you, so it never skips a decision.
  • A cat on a dark tile still settles. It simply earns nothing while it is there.

03Know what a move really costs

Moving resets the purr to nothing

Before the moveRight after itpays 100you move itpays 0Move early, while a nap is still cheap to lose
The cat keeps none of its progress, so the cat you most want to move is usually the one it costs most to move. A simplified teaching example.

This is the whole game in one sentence: every other move you make is paid for out of a nap.

04Read the numbers on the floor

Lit tile

4
The number is how many more turns of sun this tile has. When it runs out, the cat sitting there stops earning.

Sun on its way

2
A pale badge on dark floor counts down until the sun arrives. Sending a cat here early is free, because a dark tile earns nothing anyway.

Shade

Furniture standing in the sunlight darkens the floor behind it. Cats never cast shade.

The radiator

Always warm, so a cat here always earns something. Its purr stops climbing at the third step, so it is a reliable spot rather than a rich one.

The sunlight does not stay put

36The sun is here nowOnly the cat in the light is earning14A few turns later, the sun has moved onSame cat, same tile, now earning nothing
The same room, a few turns apart. The band slides on and leaves the cat behind, so a tile that pays well now will pay nothing soon. The numbers are your warning.

Arriving before the sun does is the single most useful habit in Sunloaf. Watch for the pale countdown badges and send a cat to meet the light.

05Sleep them side by side

Neighbours share warmth

Cats that touch keep each other warmin the darkearns 0both earn a bonusA cat resting in the shade still warms its neighbour
Cats asleep on touching tiles each earn a bonus, and a bigger cat gives a bigger one. A cat asleep in the shade earns nothing itself but still warms the cat next to it.

Keep that last part in mind. Later in a run the sunlight arrives in a checkerboard, so lit tiles never touch and a cat parked in the shade becomes the only way to keep a bonus going.

06Serve the bowls

Three, two, one, food

The mat counts down before food arrives321Have a cat waiting when it reaches zeroEating is free. It never wakes a cat.
A mat counts down before a bowl is served. If a cat is on the mat when it arrives, your snack chain grows and is worth more each time. The chain carries across days and only resets if a bowl goes uneaten.
  • Eating is free. It costs no turn and never resets a cat's purr.
  • Later days serve two mats on the same turn, which you have to plan for rather than react to.
  • An uneaten bowl just stays full. Nobody goes without.

07Watch for Biscuit

A friendly dog on a fixed route

His next step is always shownNEXTA cat beside Biscuit gets up to say helloso move it the turn before, not after
From the sixth day a dog wanders a set path. A cat standing on or beside him gets up to say hello, which resets its purr. His next tile is always marked, so you can see it coming.

Biscuit never chases anyone and nothing bad happens to a cat. He simply interrupts a nap, so the fix is to move that cat one turn early.

08Finish the day, then decide

  • Each day has a cosy target shown under the board. Reach it before the sun finishes crossing the room and you earn the next day.
  • Every new day is a different room, and they keep coming. There is no final day.
  • Days get harder by changing the problem: the band of sun narrows, more cats arrive than there are good spots, and clouds start passing over. A cloud pauses every nap rather than breaking it.
  • At the end of a day, choose Next Day to carry on or End Run to stop there.
  • End Run asks you to tap twice, so you cannot end a run by accident.

Every point is safe the moment you earn it, so carrying on never puts your score at risk. Stop whenever you like and the run is yours.

Play Sunloaf