Arrow Puzzle Guides
Everything you need to get better at arrow puzzles, from the one rule to the techniques that crack the hardest boards. All guides are written for the levels on this site and checked against our solver.
- How to Play the Arrow GameThe one rule, how to spot the first move, controls and answers to common questions.Updated Oct 27, 2026
- Arrow Puzzle Strategy: 8 Techniques for Hard LevelsTechniques for crowded boards, with diagrams and a look at the numbers behind spike levels.Updated Oct 27, 2026
- What Is an Arrow Puzzle?The genre explained: names, how it works, why there are no dead ends, and how levels are built.Updated Oct 27, 2026
Where to start
- Never played? Read how to play: one rule, four steps and the controls. It takes two minutes, then try level 1.
- Stuck on a big board? The strategy guide shows how to find free arrows fast, read chains of blocked arrows and get through spike levels.
- Curious about the genre? What is an arrow puzzle? covers where the arrow game comes from, why no level can become impossible and how our levels are generated.
- Want a challenge? Jump to level 2, a 9×9 board with 20 arrows that takes 10 rounds to clear, and put the eight techniques from the strategy guide to work.
Quick reference
- An arrow leaves the board only if the line from its head to the edge is empty. The body never matters.
- Tapping a blocked arrow counts as a miss. Misses never end a level; there is no time limit.
- Any free arrow is a safe move, so you can never trap yourself.
- There are 30 levels from 5×5 to 9×9. Spike levels (2, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30) take 8.5 rounds to clear on average, against 4.2 for the rest.
How we write these guides
Every guide is written for the levels on this site. When a guide gives a number, such as how many rounds a spike level takes, it is computed from the published level data rather than typed by hand, so the guides stay correct when levels are added. Facts about other games or research appear only with a linked source, and quotations are copied word for word. Each guide shows the date it was last updated, and you can tell us about mistakes at the address on the about page.