15 Puzzle
Moves: 0Best: -
- Category
- Puzzle
- Players
- 1
- Controls
- Tap
- Grid
- 4 x 4
- Loads
- No download
Controls
| Tap a tile | Slide it into the empty space if it is adjacent. |
| New game | Shuffle the tiles and start over. |
Next up
| Tap a tile | Slide it into the empty space if it is adjacent. |
| New game | Shuffle the tiles and start over. |
The 15 Puzzle is a wooden toy from the 1870s that caused a genuine craze. Fifteen numbered tiles sit in a four by four frame with one empty space, and you slide them around until they run in order. There is nothing to learn and everything to work out, which is why it has outlasted almost every other puzzle of its era.
The difficulty is that you can only move tiles into the single gap, so getting one tile where you want it usually means disturbing several others. Beginners solve the first few tiles quickly, then spend a long time going in circles. The trick is a method, not more shuffling.
Solve it row by row, top to bottom, then column by column. Once a row is correct, do not disturb it again; work entirely in the space below. Trying to fix everything at once is what leaves people shuffling forever.
The last two tiles of each row need a special move. Place them together in a rotated position and then cycle them into place, rather than putting one in and finding the other locked out. Learning this one manoeuvre unlocks the whole method.
Finish with the bottom two rows together, not one at a time. The final six tiles have to be solved as a group, because completing the third row first can leave the last row impossible to arrange. Treat the bottom section as a single little puzzle.
Move deliberately rather than fast. The move counter rewards efficiency, and random sliding both inflates the count and undoes progress. A slower, planned solve almost always finishes in fewer moves than a frantic one.
Only into the single empty space, and only from an adjacent square. That constraint is the entire puzzle.
The board is generated so it can always be solved, so you never need to restart because of an impossible arrangement.
By the number of moves taken. Fewer is better, and your best is saved in your browser.
Solve row by row from the top, then finish the bottom two rows together as a group.
No. 15 Puzzle runs entirely inside this page, so it starts the moment the page opens. There is nothing to download, no plugin, and no account to create.