Toll Roads

Six towns — Ash, Bay, Cove, Dune, Elm and Fen — and eight roads between them, each road with its own toll. You open the roads you want and close the ones you do not, and you have finished when two things are true at once: every town can be reached from Ash along the roads you opened, and the tolls you opened add up to exactly the target. Either half on its own is easy. It is the two together that make it a puzzle, because the cheapest way to join the map up is almost never the way that hits the number.

Every map here is built backwards. A route that reaches all six towns is laid first, and the target is simply what that route costs — so an answer provably exists before you ever see the board, and no map can be impossible. The extra roads are added afterwards at their own tolls, which is where the traps come from: sets that add up perfectly and still leave a town stranded.

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 the eight roads with the arrow keys, or W A S D. The roads sit four across and two down, and the cursor clamps at the edges rather than wrapping round.
3. Step through them in order with F if you would rather not aim.
4. Open or close the road you are on with Enter or Space — or click or tap it. An open road is marked ✓ open, a closed one · shut, and each button shows the two towns it joins and its toll.
5. Watch the tolls line. It reads, for example, 23 of 31 — 8 under, so you always know how far off you are without adding anything up yourself.
6. Watch the town strip under the board. A town shows ● when it is linked to Ash and ○ with a dashed edge when it is still cut off, plus how many of its own roads you have opened.
7. Spend your moves carefully. Every change costs one, including closing a road you opened by mistake, so it is worth deciding before you press.

How do you pick roads that connect every town for an exact total?

Start with the roads you have no choice about, because they cost you nothing to work out. Look for a town with only one road touching it: that road is the only way in or out, so it is in every possible answer, and you can open it and take its toll straight off the target before thinking about anything else. The same argument covers any road that is the sole link between two halves of the map. Once the forced roads are in, count how many towns are still unreachable from Ash — you need at least one more road for each of them, because a set that reaches n towns needs at least n − 1 roads to do it. That lower bound is usually enough to rule out most of the ways of hitting the number: if you are 6 short of the target and the cheapest two roads that would rescue a stranded town cost 4 and 5, then one of those two roads is not the one you want. Work the arithmetic and the map together rather than one after the other, because a set that adds up but leaves a gap is not close to an answer — it is a different answer to a different question. This game rates each map by exactly that: how many roads you are left to decide freely once the forced ones are taken out, and how many sets add up correctly while still stranding a town.

Why does it say the total is right but I have not won?

Because the total is only half the rules. A finished map has to reach every town: you must be able to travel from Ash to any of the other five along roads you have opened. It is entirely possible — and the boards are chosen so that it happens — to hit the target exactly while leaving Cove marooned or while building two neat little clusters that never meet. Those near misses are the whole point of the game, and they are deliberately stocked: a map is discarded during generation unless it carries at least two of them. The town strip is there so you catch it while it is cheap to fix rather than at the end. When you are on the number but a town is dark, look for a road you can swap for another of the same toll, or a pair whose tolls add up the same way round.

Why does closing a road cost a move?

Because a puzzle where changing your mind is free is a puzzle you can brute-force, and brute force teaches nothing. The budget is not arbitrary either: it is the fewest roads any winning set needs — five, since reaching six towns always takes at least five roads — plus a fixed margin of eight, plus extra room for maps the generator has rated as trap-heavy. So a map you have reasoned about leaves a comfortable amount spare, and one you are guessing at runs out. Spare moves are worth points at the end, which is the same incentive pointed the other way.

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

None, and there never will be. The tolls are just numbers on a map — there is no currency, nothing to buy, no lives to refill and nothing to win or lose but the puzzle. Your score is worked out from the finished board and it never leaves your device.

What happens when I run out of moves?

The round ends and counts as a loss, with credit kept for every town you did manage to join to Ash. You get a fresh map from Play again, and the result card tells you where you finished and how far off the target you were. There is no penalty beyond the round itself and nothing accumulates against you.

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 map, the rules, the generator and the checker all live on your device and nothing is sent anywhere while you play. Arrows move between the roads, F steps through them and Enter opens or closes one, so nothing needs a mouse. Every road announces itself in words — "Ash to Dune, toll 7, closed" — and the live region reads out the running total, how many towns are linked and which ones are still cut off. Nothing depends on telling colours apart: an open road is marked ✓, a shut one ·, a linked town ● and a cut off town ○ with a dashed outline as well.

Can a map have more than one answer?

Yes, and that is fine — unlike a puzzle that has to be unique, every set that reaches all six towns for the exact total is accepted here, so finding a different one from the route the map was built from is a win, not a near miss. The number of answers is used as a difficulty dial instead: a map with four or more ways to hit the target is thrown away during generation for being too loose, and one with a single answer surrounded by traps is rated tricky and given more room to work in.

Six towns, eight roads, one map at a time, and no undo beyond closing a road at the cost of a move. Tolls run from 1 to 9 so every total stays mental arithmetic. There is no timer and no hint button: the deal's rating — gentle, steady or tricky — tells you how much work the map holds, and the forced road rule in the first answer above is the hint. Maps are drawn fresh each round rather than progressing through a designed ladder, so difficulty varies from deal to deal within those bands.

Rope Bridge is the other puzzle here where the answer has to be one connected network rather than merely correct, and it is the natural next step if the connectivity half is the part you enjoy. Weight Split and Sum Links are the ones where hitting an exact figure does all the work, with no map to keep whole. Route Plan is the opposite temperament: there the cheapest way through is the answer, which is precisely the shortcut this game takes away from you.

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