Rope Bridge

Six to eight islands sit on a five-by-five stretch of water, and each one carries a number: how many ropes must touch it. You string ropes between them, one or two to a pair, straight across or straight down, never crossing another rope — and you are finished when every number is exactly right and the whole thing is a single connected crossing rather than two separate ones. That second half is what makes it a puzzle instead of arithmetic.

Every board here is built backwards from a finished layout, so an answer provably exists, and then checked to have only one, so you can never be marked wrong for solving it a different way.

It runs entirely on your device: 0 network requests, works offline. No ads, no account, nothing to buy, and no betting, money or prizes of any kind.

1. Focus the board — click it, or press Tab until it is outlined.
2. Move between islands with the arrow keys, or W A S D. The cursor never sits on water: an arrow hops it straight to the next island that way, which is also the only island a rope can reach in that direction.
3. Step through every island with F when nothing lies in a straight line from where you are.
4. Lay a rope with Enter or Space: press once on an island to pick it — it is marked ◆ and everywhere it can reach is marked ◇ — then press again on one of those neighbours. Or click or tap the two islands, in either order.
5. Press the same pair again for a second rope, and once more to take both down. One rope shows as ─ or │, two ropes as ═ or ║, so you can count them at a glance.
6. Drop a pick you did not mean with Esc. Picking, changing your mind and being refused a crossing are all free — only a rope that actually changes costs a move.
7. Watch the two counters. Every island shows what it still needs (+2), or done, or over. The status line shows how many pieces your network is currently in; it has to reach one.

How do you start solving a bridges puzzle?

Look for a number that has no choice left. The rule is a small piece of arithmetic: an island with n ropes to place and k neighbours can hold at most 2k, so when n equals 2k every single rope is forced — a 6 with three neighbours is double-double-double, and a 4 in a corner with two neighbours is double-double. The near miss is just as useful: when n is one less than 2k, every neighbour gets at least one rope, because leaving any of them empty would put the remaining ropes over the limit. A 3 with two neighbours is the case you will meet most often, and it settles one rope on each side before you have thought about anything else. Start with those, then look again — every rope you fix reduces a neighbour's options, and boards usually unravel in waves rather than all at once. When counting stops giving you anything, switch arguments: a rope that would close a small ring off from the rest of the board is wrong, because the finished crossing has to be one connected piece. This game rates each deal by exactly that — how many waves of forced moves it needs, and how much of it counting alone cannot settle — and shows the result as gentle, steady or tricky.

Why does it say every number is right but I have not won?

Because the counts are only half the rules. A finished board has to be one network: you must be able to walk from any island to any other along the ropes. It is completely possible to satisfy every number and end up with two separate crossings that never meet, and that arrangement is not the answer — the board was checked, and it has exactly one. The status line shows how many pieces you are currently in, so you can steer towards one from the start instead of discovering the problem at the end. When you are stuck at two pieces, look for a pair of doubled ropes: a pair that spends both its ropes on each other very often walls those two islands off from everything else.

Why can two ropes not cross?

It is the rule that makes the puzzle planar, and it is what turns the numbers into a real constraint. Without it every board would have a swarm of answers, because ropes could be strung anywhere they fitted; with it, one rope you are sure of quietly kills every rope that would cut across it, which is one of the two deductions the game is made of. Practically: the game simply refuses a rope that would cross one already standing, tells you so, and charges you nothing for trying.

Is there any money, betting or in-app purchase in this?

None, and there never will be. There is no currency, nothing to buy, no lives to refill and nothing to win or lose but the puzzle itself. Your score is worked out from the finished board and it stays on your device.

What happens when I run out of rope moves?

The round ends and it counts as a loss, with credit kept for the islands you did finish. The budget is not arbitrary: it is the number of ropes in the board's own answer plus a fixed margin of ten, so a clean solve leaves a comfortable amount spare and only repeated guessing burns through it. Boards that counting alone cannot finish get more room still. Taking a rope down costs a move, which is the whole point — it is what makes it worth deducing a rope rather than trying one.

Does it work offline, and can I play with a keyboard or a screen reader?

Yes to all three. After the page has loaded once, the board, the rules, the generator and both solvers live on your device, and nothing is sent anywhere while you play. Arrows move island to island, F steps through them, Enter lays a rope and Esc drops a pick, so nothing needs a mouse. Every island announces itself in words — "island needing 3, holding 2, one rope east, two ropes south" — and nothing depends on telling colours apart: a satisfied island says done, an over-tied one says over, and one rope and two ropes are different characters, not different shades.

A five-by-five board with six to eight islands, one deal at a time, and no undo beyond taking a rope back down at the cost of a move. Numbers never go above six even though eight is possible, because a seven or an eight on this size of board is nearly always forced and adds no thinking. There is no timer and no hint button: the deal's rating tells you how much work it holds, and the forced-move rule above is the hint.

Grid Clues is the other puzzle here where the whole board is deduced rather than searched, and Mini Sudoku is the one where the same "this cell has no choice left" argument does all the work. Knight Hop is the opposite temperament — every move there is irreversible, so it rewards caution where this one rewards commitment.

Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or ⌘D on Mac) or install the app — it works offline the next time you need it.