How to play Ordinary Puzzles

Ordinary Puzzles is a free, minimalist logic puzzle game. Every board is a small grid of numbers and dots. You drag each number outwards to draw a straight line, and the puzzle is done when every line is the right length and every dot is covered.

Play Ordinary Puzzles

The rules

  1. Drag a number to create a line extending from that cell.
  2. To be valid, a line must have exactly the length indicated on its number.
  3. Lines can be vertical or horizontal, but they cannot overlap each other.
  4. Every dot on the board must be covered by a line.
  5. A line can extend in both orientations from its number: you can draw from a "3" to the left, and then from the same "3" to the right.
  6. The puzzle is complete when every number has been extended into a valid line and every dot is covered. Each puzzle has exactly one valid solution, so you can always finish it by logical deduction instead of guessing.

The eight tutorial steps

The game includes an 8-step interactive tutorial, reachable from the tutorial entry on the home menu. These are its steps, in the game's own words.

  1. Welcome to Ordinary Puzzle.

    Create a line by dragging the "4" to the left.

  2. To be valid, lines must have the length indicated on their numbers.

    Extend the "2" and "4" into valid lines.

  3. Lines can be vertical or horizontal, but they can't overlap.

    Extend each number into a valid line.

  4. Every dot of a puzzle must be covered with a line.

    Extend the "3" to cover the dot.

  5. Lines can extend in both orientations.

    Cover both of the dots by drawing a line from the "3" to the left, and then from the "3" to the right.

  6. All together now.

    Extend all the numbers in lines and cover the dots with at least one of them.

  7. Here's a real puzzle.

    Take it slowly. Puzzles have only one valid solution. You should decide your moves based on logical deduction instead of just guessing.

  8. That's it!

    You should be good to go now. But take care: the actual puzzles might require types of logical deduction that weren't part of this tutorial.

The four puzzle tiers

There are 1,200 puzzles in total: 300 in each tier, plus the tutorial.

Tier Grid Puzzles
small 9 x 6 300
medium 10 x 7 300
large 11 x 8 300
extraordinary 11 x 8 300

Extraordinary is played on the same 11 x 8 grid as large. It is a step up in difficulty, not a step up in size: the boards are the same shape, the puzzles are simply rated harder.

How the next puzzle is chosen

You pick a tier, not an individual puzzle. Inside that tier the game looks at the puzzles you have not played yet, sorts them by their difficulty rating into ten bands, and gives you one from the lowest band you have not worked through. The practical effect is that puzzles start gentle and get harder as you complete more of a tier, and you never replay a puzzle you have already finished while unplayed ones remain.

Scoring

Finishing a puzzle awards between 8 and 50 points, scaled by how difficult that particular puzzle is rated. Your score is simply the sum of the points from every puzzle you have completed, so it only ever goes up.

The stats screen shows exactly five lines: how many small, medium, large and extraordinary puzzles you have completed, and your score. There is no online ranking to compare it against, and no time bonus, because nothing is timed.

Where your progress is stored

Your progress lives in this browser, on this device, and nowhere else. The game saves it in the browser's own local storage, under an entry named puzzleProgress. Nothing is sent to a server, because there is no server side to the game at all.

That has a consequence worth knowing before you start: there is no account, no sign-in, and no syncing between devices. If you solve 40 puzzles on a laptop and then open the game on your phone, the phone starts at zero. The two are completely separate.

Progress will also be lost if you:

There is no way to export, import or back up your progress, and there is no "reset progress" button inside the game either. If you do want a clean slate, clearing this site's stored data in your browser settings is the only way to get one.

Controls

You play entirely by dragging: press on a number and drag outwards, with a mouse or a finger. While you are on a board there are exactly two controls, Menu and Reset. Reset clears the board you are currently on so you can start it again; it does not touch your saved progress.

There is deliberately nothing else. No hint button, no undo, no timer, no daily puzzle, no streaks, no leaderboard, and no sound or music.

One honest limitation: because drawing a line is a drag gesture, there is no keyboard way to play, and the board does not expose accessibility labels, so it will not work with a screen reader or with keyboard-only or switch input. The game does follow your system's light or dark appearance setting.

Cost, ads and privacy

The game is free, with no account, no ads, no in-app purchases and no analytics or tracking. All 1,200 puzzles ship inside the page, so once it has loaded the game makes no network requests and keeps working offline.

Common questions

Is Ordinary Puzzles free?

Yes. It is completely free, with no account, no ads, no in-app purchases and no analytics or tracking.

Does my progress sync between my devices?

No. Progress is saved only in the browser you are playing in, under a local storage entry named puzzleProgress. There is no account and no sync, so 40 puzzles solved on a laptop will not appear on your phone, which starts at zero.

How many puzzles are there?

1,200 puzzles: 300 small, 300 medium, 300 large and 300 extraordinary, plus an 8-step tutorial.

Is there a hint or an undo button?

No. There is no hint, no undo, no timer, no daily puzzle, no leaderboard and no sound. On a board the only two controls are Menu and Reset.

What does Reset do?

Reset clears the board you are currently playing so you can attempt it again from the start. It does not clear your saved progress or your score.

What is the difference between large and extraordinary?

They use the same 11 x 8 grid. Extraordinary puzzles are rated harder, so extraordinary is a difficulty step rather than a bigger board.

Can I play with a keyboard?

No. Lines are drawn by dragging with a mouse or a touchscreen, and there is no keyboard path and no accessibility labelling on the board.

Who made it, and what is the licence?

Ordinary Puzzles was created by Mazzarolo Matteo and released as open source under the MIT licence. This is a port of that project.