Slow Squares

Slow Squares Printables 11

Bridges: 200 Puzzles to Print, Easy to Hard

200 puzzles that start gentle and end hard · four to a page for printing, or one to a page for a tablet · A4 and US Letter in one purchase · answers in a separate file · every board also playable online

Where to buy

Etsy

Enter the code SLOWSQUARES at checkout for 25% off in our Etsy shop.

What you get

  • Three puzzle files: A4 and US Letter with four boards to a page, and one with a single board to a page for a tablet.
  • The answers in a file of their own, so they never come out of the printer with the puzzles.
  • Four boards to a page for printing, and a third file with one to a page — for a tablet, or for a board you can rest a hand on.
  • Every board also playable on this site, with its answer a tap away.

How hard are they

Every board here was graded by the reasoning it actually needs, and a solver walked each one to the end before it was kept. None of them needs a guess, and none of them needs a rule you have not been told.

First moves

Boards 1–16

  • 6 × 6Counting alone finishes every board: an island’s number weighed against the bridges its neighbours can still take, as in “Full counts” and “One short of full”.

One step further

Boards 17–44

  • 7 × 7Still counting alone, on every board.

Larger boards

Boards 45–80

  • 8 × 8Counting alone finishes thirty-two of the thirty-six. The other four also need the rule that bridges never cross: a bridge already drawn closes the way across it. None needs “The isolation rule”.

Holding together

Boards 81–124

  • 10 × 10A new move, on every board, one to five times: “The isolation rule” — a bridge that would finish a group of islands and cut it off from the rest can never be right. Twelve of the forty-four also need the rule that bridges never cross.

More islands

Boards 125–168

  • 12 × 12“The isolation rule” on every board, two to nine times, and on thirty-six of the forty-four the rule that bridges never cross as well.

A whole archipelago

Boards 169–200

  • 15 × 15The same, more often: “The isolation rule” two to ten times a board, and the rule that bridges never cross on thirty of the thirty-two. Every board but one has forty islands.

Each name in quotation marks is a chapter of the game’s how-to-play page, worked through step by step on a small board:

What is inside

  • Bridges200
  • Tents and Trees3
  • One Star3
  • Sinking Leaves3

A look inside

The first board of four of its stages, gentlest first, drawn exactly as the file prints them.

  • 6 × 6
  • 8 × 8
  • 10 × 10
  • 15 × 15

Find a board

Every board here is numbered, 1 to 209. Type a number to see that board, and its answer when you want it.