Banners

Medium Banners puzzles

Medium flags belong to well-known countries, and more of them share their colors with a neighbor's flag.

Practice gives you flags you haven't found yet, as many as you like, and keeps your best time without hints. Once you've found every flag at a level, the other levels' flags come next, those closest in difficulty first.

How to play Banners

1. A country's flag is hidden behind a grid of tiles. Name the country.
2. Each guess lays its own flag over the hidden one: every tile where the two have the same color in the same place turns over and stays showing. Your guesses also show how much of the flag they matched.
3. You have six guesses. Name it within six and you've solved it. Stuck? Give up, and the flag shows.

Colors count by name, so a navy blue and a sky blue are different, but two reds are the same. Indonesia's and Monaco's flags are alike tile for tile: if a guess matches all of the hidden flag and isn't the answer, the answer is its twin. Other look-alikes, such as Australia's and New Zealand's, differ in a few tiles. Territories such as Greenland and Aruba count as countries here, but the ones that fly another country's flag, as French Guiana flies France's, are never the answer.

Tips

• Start with a busy flag. A flag with many colors and shapes, such as South Africa's, can show more of the hidden one than a plain one.
• Look at where the tiles are. A row of tiles across the top says stripes; tiles in a corner suggest a canton, such as a Union Jack or a star.
• Use a guess to test a color. If you think the flag has green, guess a flag with green where you think it is.