A free daily bridges puzzle: Lacey’s Web

How Lacey’s Web plays

• Read the numbers. Each number is how many threads touch that knot. The threads out to the attic frame are already spun, and they count.
• Tap the lines. Every possible thread is a faint line: the spokes running out from the hub, and the rings running round. Tap a line once to spin a thread, twice to mark it ✕ (not a thread), three times to clear it.
• Mend the web. Every knot needs exactly its number, and all the threads must join into one web.

A knot with its number turns green with a check mark. A knot with too many turns red with a +. Back one takes your last tap back, and undos never count against you.

Some knots show “?” instead of their number. While you play, a “?” knot never turns green or red. It only has to join the web.

A new web comes every day at midnight, your time, the same for everyone. At the moment Monday to Saturday’s has three rings, 19 knots, and Sunday’s has 25.

A worked example: the practice web

Every new player’s first web is a small practice one: a hub in the middle and one ring of five knots around it. The hub says 2. Going round the ring from the top: 2, 2, 4, 3, 2. Each ring knot already has its thread out to the frame.

Each ring knot has four lines: the frame thread, a spoke to the hub, and a ring line to each neighbor.

1. The 4 needs every line it has. It has exactly four, so spin its spoke and both of its ring lines.
2. The 2 next to it is now full. It has its frame thread and the thread from the 4. Mark its other two lines ✕.
3. The one-web moment. The 2 at the top and the 2 at the upper left each have their frame thread and need one more. The ring line between them would give both what they need. But then both would be full, and the two of them would sit apart from the rest of the web, joined only to each other and the frame. So that line is ✕.
4. The top 2 now has one line left, its spoke to the hub. Spin it.
5. The hub 2 now has two threads, to the 4 and to the top. It’s full: ✕ its other spokes.
6. The upper-left 2 has one line left, its ring line down to the 3. Spin it.
7. The 3 now has its frame thread, the thread from the 4, and the thread from the upper-left 2. Three. Every knot has its number, and it’s all one web. Mended.

Each step used one of three rules: fill a knot that needs every line, ✕ around a full knot, and keep it one web. The daily webs need nothing else, plus, on harder days, a short “what if”.

Tips for solving bridges puzzles

1. Fill the exact fits. If a knot’s faint lines are exactly what it still needs, spin them all.
2. ✕ around full knots. When a knot has its number, mark its other lines ✕ straight away. It often leaves a neighbor with only one choice.
3. Keep it one web. Don’t spin a thread that would close off a group whose knots are all full, and don’t ✕ a line that’s the only way to reach part of the web. The game fades threads that sit apart, as a warning.
4. Use the frame threads. The outer ring’s knots start with one thread each. A 2 on the outer ring needs only one more.
5. Try one line in your head. When nothing is forced, pick a line and ask: if this were a thread, what would have to follow? If two or three moves later a knot has too many threads, the line is a ✕.
6. “?” knots still matter. They have no number to meet, but they do have to join the web. A “?” knot that isn’t joined to the rest yet, with only one open line left, must take it.

How it compares with Hashi

Hashi (Hashiwokakero) is a bridge-building puzzle from Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle publisher. You can play it free as Bridges in Simon Tatham’s puzzle collection.

Lacey’s Web takes Hashi’s two big ideas, numbers that count connections and one connected network, and changes the board:

• In Hashi you find bridges in open space. In Lacey’s Web the possible threads are already drawn as faint lines.
• Hashi allows two bridges between a pair. Lacey’s Web allows one thread per line.
• Hashi bridges can’t cross. Lacey’s Web’s lines only meet at knots, so crossings never come up.
• Lacey’s Web gives you the frame threads, and adds “?” knots.

If you came here looking for Numberlink, the puzzle in the app Flow Free, that’s a different idea: you join matching pairs of numbers with separate paths that don’t cross. Lacey’s Web has no pairs. If what you like is drawing one line through a whole grid, try Rex’s Fetch, our daily path puzzle, and our guide to path puzzles.

Why every web has exactly one answer

Each day’s web is drawn by a program from the date. Before anyone plays it, a solver mends it from the numbers alone, using only the rules a player has, the same ones as the tips above. If it can’t finish the web that way, the web is thrown out and another is drawn. A web the rules can mend completely has exactly one answer, and you can always reach it by logic. How we make puzzles with exactly one answer has the details.

Your result, par and the streak

Every web has a par time, about what the fastest third of players take. It shows while you play. Finish under par for a gold web. Your result shows your time and your streak, with a little web for each of the last seven days.

Once your web is mended it shows for a moment, then fades to plain knots, so a screenshot of your result doesn’t give the day’s web away. “See your web” brings it back. Share sends your time, never the threads, with a link for a friend to try to beat it. Lacey’s Web has its own board for your group and for the whole world, fastest first. The rules for all three games are in How to play, and Lie of Sight is the family’s find-the-liar daily.

Questions people ask