Daily logic puzzle
Hashi online, new sandbanks every midnight.
Hashi, also called Bridges or Hashiwokakero, asks you to join numbered islands with straight bridges: each island takes exactly as many bridges as its number, bridges never cross, and in the end everything hangs together. Ours is called Cranes, it is free, and a new one appears at midnight.
- new sandbanks at midnight, easy on Monday and thirteen by thirteen on Sunday
- exactly one solution, reachable by reasoning, checked by program
- hints that explain the technique, a two step Check, no red ink while you play
Today's water. Each number counts the walkways leaving that sandbank.
The rules
Three rules, and that is the whole game.
Hashi is also published as Bridges, Hashiwokakero and Chopsticks. The rules are the same under every name.
- Join the sandbanks with straight walkways. A walkway runs up and down or left and right, and only between two sandbanks that stand in line with nothing in between.
- A number on a sandbank counts its walkways. When it says four, exactly four walkways leave it. Two walkways may run side by side between the same pair, and that counts as two.
- Walkways never cross, and when the water is finished every sandbank can be reached from every other.
Our name for it
We call it Cranes.
The puzzle is known as Hashi, short for Hashiwokakero, which means building bridges. We call ours Cranes because the birds stand on sandbanks and the bridges are walkways between them, and because the last rule, that everything must be reachable from everywhere, is easier to feel as a bird walking home than as a graph being connected.
The rules are untouched. The standard openings work here: an island marked eight takes double bridges in all four directions, a three in a corner is forced, and isolating a pair early is the usual way a solution goes wrong.
Where to start
Three ways in.
The archive of past waters is free as well and goes back a year: Cranes archive.
- Play today's water
The daily puzzle, easy on Monday and thirteen by thirteen on Sunday, new at midnight.
- How to play Hashi
The rules with a worked example, the controls and the forced openings worth knowing.
- Practice sets
Sets by difficulty when one water a day is not enough.
One solution
A program says so, not a person.
Every puzzle we publish has exactly one solution, and it is a program that decides. The generator throws a candidate away unless the solver returns exactly one solution and unless a second solver, restricted to human style reasoning, finishes it without guessing.
You can see the check yourself: the file tests.mjs in the game folder runs it over thirty days in every size. The connectedness rule is part of that check, so a layout that satisfies every number but leaves an island group stranded never gets published as the answer.
While you play, nothing goes red. A mistake is shown only by Check, in two steps: first how many bridges are wrong and roughly where, then which ones. Hint works the same way, first the technique and the island, then the bridge.
Questions
Questions about Hashi.
What is Hashi?
A bridge building puzzle. Numbered islands sit on a grid and you join them with straight horizontal or vertical bridges. Each island takes exactly as many bridge ends as its number, at most two bridges join the same pair, bridges never cross, and at the end every island must be reachable from every other. It is also published as Bridges, Hashiwokakero and Chopsticks.
Is it free here?
Yes. The daily puzzle, the practice sets, the archive going back a year, the hints and the Check are all free, with no account and no advertising. We sell printable puzzle books on the same site, and that is the whole business model.
Can two bridges join the same pair of islands?
Yes, at most two, running side by side, and they count as two towards both numbers. Three is never allowed. An island marked eight therefore has to take double bridges in all four directions, which is the most reliable opening move there is.
Why does everything have to be connected?
Because it is part of the puzzle, not decoration. A layout can satisfy every number and still be wrong if it splits into two separate groups of islands. That rule is often what settles the last few bridges, and our checker applies it too.
Do I ever have to guess?
No, and that is checked rather than promised. Every published puzzle was solved by a program restricted to reasoning before it was allowed out. If you are stuck, Hint names the technique and the island before it draws a bridge.
Where can I get more of these on paper?
In the Cranes book: one hundred Hashi puzzles as a printable PDF in A4 and US Letter, with the solutions at the back. There is a free five puzzle sample to look at first. See the <a href="/puzzle-books/hashi-puzzle-book/">Hashi puzzle book</a>.
Related
More of the same.
One hundred of these on paper, with the solutions at the back: Hashi puzzle book (PDF, free sample).
All ten daily games are on one page: daily logic games.
Auf Deutsch: Hashi online spielen.