Marple's playing board consists of four rows and five columns. Each row hosts a different type of tile: letters (A, B, C, D, E); numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); dice-side numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); or shapes (square, arrow, circle, star, and plus). At the beginning of a puzzle, each column contains one of every possible tile, grouped by tile type (five tiles per row for a total of 20 tiles per column). The object of the game is to figure out which of each type of tile belongs in each column; each tile can appear only once on the board.

Before and After: A new Marple puzzle (left) and the same puzzle finished (right)

For each group, you choose a particular tile by tapping the group to enlarge it and then touching and holding the desired tile. Alternatively--and much more usefully, given how you determine which tile goes where--you can quickly tap individual tiles in the group to eliminate them. You restore an individual tile by tapping it again. Tapping outside of the enlarged tile group "closes" it.

And how do you determine which tile goes where? By using your powers of logic. At the bottom of the screen, Marple provides several types of clues (not every puzzle will have every type of clue):

In-between clues: Consisting of three different tiles, these clues indicate the horizontal order of the three tiles. For example, 3E2 indicates that E is in a column between 3 and 2 (but not necessarily adjacent to either). The sequence can appear left-to-right or right-to-left.