After you use the radio on the ship --

How do I use the radio in the wheelhouse?

-- Alex will ask you to come here and fix the light. Call her as soon as you get here, and she'll give you a quick rundown. (She also says you can call her if you get stuck, but she's not really much help.)

There's no question, this is a frustrating little puzzle. And since the way it plays out is RANDOM, I can't tell you exactly what moves to make to win it. But read on, and I'll give you as much help as I can.

What you're trying to do here is create white lights. A white light is created when two rainbow circles join up; a rainbow is created when two reds join; a red is created when two greens join; and a green is created when two blues join.

You have only blue lights to start with. So to make a white light, you have to join two blues to make a green, two greens to make a red, two reds to make a rainbow, and two rainbows to make a white. So it takes 16 blues to make one white.

Your moves consist of tilting the playing field up, down, left, or right. When you do this, the lights will roll and hit that wall. If two lights the same color hit or are pushed together, they'll join up to make a new color.

With every turn, a new blue light appears at a random location. This is why I can't tell you what moves to make, because I don't know where those blue lights will appear. As a consolation, there's no time limit, so stop before you make a move to consider what will happen to the existing lights when you tilt the board.

Be especially aware of the colors that are going to come between two same colors. For example, if your board looks like this --

B
G #p+

-- if you tilt to the right, that blue is going to end up between the two greens, which now can't join. A better move here would be to tilt down, which would make the two greens join and become a red.

For amateurs, you only need to make 5 whites. That's a little frustrating, but it's not too hard if you take it slow and think about each move before you make it.

For masters, you need to make 7 whites, and that's a lot harder. By the time you get close, the board is so full of lights that it's hard to make any move at all. If the board gets completely full and you haven't made enough white lights, pop! it's empty, and you're starting over.

Finishing the amateur puzzle took me about three tries, and finishing the master took me more than ten tries before I got it, and there was much cussing. If this puzzle is making you crazy, I recommend leaving it and coming back to it in the morning.