How to play Porchlight: rules and route-planning strategy
Everything you need to play Porchlight, plus tips to get a better score.
How to play
- Deliver every parcel and drive back to the depot in as few moves as possible. Back on the depot with nothing left to deliver, the day ends by itself at par; with more moves a Finish button appears: hand it in, or undo and keep trying.
- The depot is the yellow dashed pad next to the warehouse with the orange roof and the house badge. The van starts there with a full tank.
- Drag the van along the streets with your finger (or the mouse) and it follows, one block per move. You can also tap or click a street next to the van.
- On a computer, the arrow keys or WASD drive too. The map is turned 45°: ↑ goes north (up and to the right), → east (down and to the right), ↓ south (down and to the left) and ← west (up and to the left). The small compass in the corner of the map shows it.
- Each customer's stop is the dashed ring on the street in front of a house with a 📦 badge. Driving onto the ring delivers the parcel by itself: the ring turns green, the house shows ✓ and the box above the map gets a tick. Driving over it again does nothing.
- Every move burns one unit of fuel. The gauge shows what is left; the tank is small and its size changes every day. The gauge turns orange when a quarter of the tank or less is left and blinks when it is empty. With an empty tank the van can't move: undo.
- Driving onto a petrol station ⛽ (red pump) fills the tank to the top, as many times as you like. Towns have one station on Mondays and Tuesdays, two from Wednesday to Saturday and three on Sundays.
- Houses, shops, parks and the fountain square in the middle of town are not streets: drive round them. Every town has one fountain square.
- Some towns have one or two dead ends: streets that just stop. Drive in and come back out the same way. There is always a parcel, a station or the depot at the end.
- On Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, roadworks (orange cones and a striped barrier) close one street. The van can't get through: find another way.
- From Thursday to Sunday, one block of street is one-way: big white arrows show the only direction you can drive it, along the whole block.
- If a move isn't allowed, the line under the gauge says why (no street, roadworks, wrong way down a one-way street, empty tank).
- Undo (or Z / Backspace) takes back the last move; dragging the van back along the street you just drove does the same. Start over takes the van back to the depot with a full tank. Both are free: only the moves of your final route count.
- The dashed orange line is the route you have driven so far. You can hide it in Settings, along with the sounds and the vibration.
- Par is the fewest moves possible. Match par for ⭐⭐⭐, par + 1 to + 3 for ⭐⭐, anything more for ⭐. Every route in town has an even number of moves, so the next score after par is par + 2.
- The result shows your moves and par. The shared line has a 📦 per parcel and ⛽× the number of times you refuelled, never the route itself.
Strategy: order and fuel
Start by counting: the fuel gauge says how many moves you have. If the whole round is longer than the tank, you will need a station somewhere in the middle, and where you stop decides which parcels you can reach afterwards.
The nearest parcel first is the obvious plan, and on most days it is not the best one. Try the round the other way, or start with the parcel next to the station.
Refuel as late as you safely can: a stop with a nearly full tank wastes the detour. The best moment is often when the tank is almost empty and the station is on your way.
A parcel at the end of a dead-end street costs a there-and-back. Fetch it when you are passing that corner anyway.
One-way streets and roadworks change which way round is shorter. Check the arrows before you plan, not halfway through.
Every route in town has an even number of moves, so after par the next score is par + 2. Undo is free: try a route, watch the gauge and step back.