HubbardGamesPuzzle guides
Clear examples, useful techniques and practical guides for the daily puzzle league.
Colour Pour · Solving guide
A Colour Pour board gives you one empty tube. Put the wrong ball in it and the board can lock on your first move. An original three colour board where one of the three opening pours kills it outright, checked by exhaustive search.
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Colour Fields · Solving guide
In Colour Fields, a square sitting between two clues of the same colour can never take that colour, whatever the numbers say. An original five by five board showing two squares the rule settles before you count anything.
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Giving up on a competitive daily scores zero, which is exactly what never opening the board scores. The points are not the reason to hesitate. The reason is that the attempt closes, and nothing you do before midnight reopens it.
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Four Colour · Solving guide
Some regions in Four Colour have no decision in them at all. A region hemmed in by three areas that already touch each other has exactly one colour left, whatever those three turn out to be. An original five by five board showing which regions to colour first and which to leave alone.
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Triangle Tiles · Solving guide
A number in Triangle Tiles counts the triangles beside it, but it only ever sees open cells. On a board edge, or hemmed in by other black cells, it may see one. An original five by five board where two numbers give up their answer on sight.
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The Just for fun catalogue is far bigger than the eight cards on Today, and the eight you get are not the eight I get. Here is the ordering the page actually runs, worked through on one account, plus what counts as having played a game and what quietly does not.
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Float & Fall · Solving guide
Every iron ball in Float & Fall needs something underneath it, and a room only ever holds one. Put those two rules together and a third of the board is gone before you place anything. An original five by five board where the idea settles three rooms in a row.
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Numberlink · Solving guide
On a Numberlink board every cell has to end up on a line, and that makes an unnumbered corner the most forcing square on the grid. Here is an original five by five board where one empty corner completes a whole pair before any other clue is read, checked against the game's own solver and by exhaustive enumeration.
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Math Mosaic · Solving guide
On a four or five wide Math Mosaic board, every two-cell times cage names both of its numbers, and a subtraction cage almost never does. Here is a board where one 2x cage fills three cells before anything else is known, checked against the game's own solver and by exhaustive enumeration.
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Sweep · Solving guide
A worked Sweep position where no single number decides anything, and two overlapping clues clear two cells outright. Includes the follow-on move and the mistake it prevents.
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Traffic · Solving guide
Traffic joined the competitive dailies on 21 September. Count the rows either side of the exit lane: on a 6x6 board there are two above and three below, so a three-cell car blocking your lane can only go down. Here is a worked board where that one fact picks your first move.
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A timed board is not ranked on how long you had it open. The clock stops while the page is hidden and while the rules are open, and it never runs backwards. Here is one Blooms attempt that took four and a half minutes of an evening and went to the standings as one minute fifty-five.
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Pearl Loop · Solving guide
Most players check whether there is a square next to a black pearl. The rule asks for two. Counted over 300 generated boards, that difference decides 30% of all black pearls before you have drawn a single line. Worked on an original six by six board and checked against the game's own solver.
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The Share button posts your result into a group chat where other people have not played yet. It sends a picture of how you did with the answer taken out. Here are two complete Five Letters solves, against two different answers, that post exactly the same grid.
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Patchwork · Solving guide
Three 3s printed next to each other on a Patchwork board do not mean three blocks of three. They mean one block of three, already finished, with six cells around it sealed off. Worked on an original five by five board and checked cell by cell against the game's own solver.
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Lineloop · Solving guide
A 3 looks like the strongest clue on a Lineloop board and a 0 looks like it says nothing. Counted across 420 generated boards, the zeros rule out 47% of every edge on the grid before you have reasoned about anything, and the threes rule out none. Worked on an original board and checked against the game's own solver.
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Pairs · Solving guide
Most players open a Pairs board by hunting for a cell with one free neighbour. On the board below no such cell exists, and the board still opens immediately, because the useful question is not where a cell can go but where a domino can go. Checked against the game's own solver and by exhaustive enumeration.
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Islands · Solving guide
The no-2x2-water rule reads like something to check at the end. It is a deduction. On the six by six board below it is the only thing that grows an island, five separate times, and the board finishes without a single guess. Checked against the game's own solver and by brute force.
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The hint button is on every HubbardGames board and it is never free. On the five timed dailies it adds ten seconds to the clock you are ranked on. On the four counted ones it adds one to the number the ranking uses, without changing the result you see. Here is the price, worked in points.
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Number Neighbours · Solving guide
The no-touching rule in Number Neighbours ignores block borders, so a three-cell block can settle a cell that is not even in it. On the board below nothing at all is forced by direct elimination, and one cross-block deduction opens the whole thing. Checked against the game's own solver and by brute force.
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Number Runs · Solving guide
Every square in Number Runs sits in two runs at once, and the shorter of the two decides the biggest number it can ever hold. That one fact settles four squares on the board below without a single guess. Here is the reasoning, checked against the game's own solver.
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Shade Out · Solving guide
In Shade Out, when two equal numbers in a line have exactly one cell between them, that middle cell can never be shaded. Here is the proof in one step, worked on a five by five board where the top row happens to contain two of these pairs at once and settles completely.
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Bridges · Solving guide
Two islands marked 1, sitting next to each other, look like a free pair. Joining them satisfies both numbers and ruins the board, because the pair seals itself off from everything else. Here is a full seven by seven board opened from that one refusal, with the reason behind each bridge.
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HubbardGames turns over at midnight in London. New boards appear, yesterday's move to Catch-up, and a board you submit four minutes late counts for nothing in the standings. What resets, what is kept, what fills a streak day and how much grace a streak gets.
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