How to play Circuit
One unbroken line through every cell, hitting the numbers in order.
Play today’s Circuit →The rules
Draw a single line from waypoint 1 to the highest number, picking up the numbered cells in order along the way. It has to fill every square on the board, and it can never cross itself.
- The path starts at 1 and ends at the highest number.
- It visits the numbered waypoints in ascending order.
- It passes through every cell exactly once.
- It moves up, down, left and right, and never crosses itself.
The techniques, in the order you will need them
This list is doing double duty. Every entry is a deduction the grading solver actually performs, and the difficulty on a board is decided by how far down the list the solver had to go. A puzzle is only labelled beginner if the first rank was enough, and only expert if the last one was genuinely needed. Learn them in order and you are learning the ladder.
Only way outBeginner
The line can leave a cell in only one direction - every other neighbour is already used, off the board, or a waypoint that is not due yet.
Do not strand a cellIntermediate
The line must pass through every cell. If going one way would leave a cell with no way in or out, that way is wrong.
Do not cut the board in twoAdvanced
The rest of the line is one unbroken walk, so it cannot jump. A move that splits the untouched cells into two separate pockets can be ruled out.
Follow it and see it failExpert
Take a direction and keep applying the simpler rules. If the line paints itself into a corner, that direction was wrong - so the other one is right.
Why you will never need to guess
Every Circuit board we publish has been through an exhaustive search proving it has one answer, then handed to the technique solver above to be solved a second time. Boards that second solver cannot finish are thrown away before they ever reach the calendar. So the difficulty label is not somebody’s impression of how the puzzle feels. It is a statement about which of these techniques you will have to use.
Where to play
- Today’s Daily. One board a day, the same one for everybody, replaced at your local midnight.
- Unlimited. Four difficulties, and it does not run out.
- Archive. Every Daily we have published. Playing an old one cannot break your streak.