Slow Squares

Slow Squares Printables 9

One Star: 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 × 6Every board needs “Crossing out”, and “A region in one line” two to five times: a region that fits inside one row or column takes that line’s star. Nothing more.

One step further

Boards 17–44

  • 7 × 7The same two moves and nothing more, on every board, with “A region in one line” one to six times.

A new move

Boards 45–80

  • 8 × 8A new move, one to five times on every board: “Wherever the star goes”. When every cell a row, column or region has left for its star touches the same cell, that cell is crossed out.

Medium difficulty

Boards 81–120

  • 8 × 8“Lines against regions”, once or twice a board: two regions lying wholly inside two rows hold both those rows’ stars, so nothing else in those rows can be one. Thirty-three of the forty also need “Wherever the star goes”.

A size up

Boards 121–160

  • 9 × 9The same, a size up: “Lines against regions” once or twice a board, and twenty-four of the forty also need “Wherever the star goes”.

Hard

Boards 161–200

  • 10 × 10“Lines against regions” two to four times a board; twenty-five of the forty also need “Wherever the star goes”.

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

What is inside

  • One Star200
  • Tents and Trees3
  • Bridges3
  • 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
  • 8 × 8
  • 10 × 10

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.