Puzzledom Tips, Cheats and Strategies

Puzzledom is a pleasant little diversion consisting of ten classic puzzles you’ve likely seen in mobile form somewhere or another. It’s not for those looking for an extreme challenge or to get high scores. There are no time limits or leaderboards to get in the way of the relaxing, laidback enjoyment of just moving colorful tiles or pieces around and solving tangled conundrums. Take your time and just have fun with the game, but if you need some ideas to get you through the next puzzle (and want to avoid the Hint button), here are some tips, cheats and strategies for the games of Puzzledom:

Connect

• Feel free to experiment. There’s no penalty for trying and failing, nor is there a time limit or a limit on rewards based on how much you play around. The point is just to, eventually, finish the puzzle.
• If you’re stuck, just start connecting lines. In the early games, you’ll often accidentally get it right. Later, patterns will appear as you connect and you’ll start to see which lines need to be in which spots for others to pass through.
• Don’t forget you have to fill in the entire board. If you have too much space and not enough colors, try some zig zags between squares with one color to fill extra space.

Tangram

• Just like with Connect, experiment away. There’s no penalty for messing up or time limits, so move things around until you start to see patterns.
• Start with corners first, then fill from there.
• That said, pieces that look like corners aren’t always corners. You may discover that there’s no right answer with a certain piece in a corner, and will have to move it elsewhere.
• If you’re stumped, take a look at which pieces have edges that obvious match with one another, and begin with those. You may need to do some guesswork since if the pieces overlap, you can’t just lay them out and shuffle them, but finding a starting point to build from is key.

Plumber

• These quickly look overwhelming, but don’t panic! Start from one side (Starting from the source is better, since the color will move along the pipe and be easy to see) and gradually work your way along the pipes.
• Use what you learned from Connect to avoid cutting off other colored pipes as you move along. Be aware of the routes each color will have to take in order to get to the other side.
• All pieces will be used, so if you think you have an easy route to the end, think again!
• As you progress, you’ll discover that colors can cross and mix with one another via certain types of pipes. Unless the end goal is a mixed color, you’ll have to keep them separate. If it is a mix, you’ll be forced to combine them to finish the puzzle.

Blocks

• Again, as with all puzzles, feel free to experiment, as there’s no penalty or drawback for doing so. It’s especially easy to do so in Blocks because you can drop pieces on the board and move them around freely to see how they all fit together.
• Use the square limits of the board to get an idea of what pieces even can fit where. A four-long piece can’t fit in a three-long area, so you know there are a limited number of spaces it can go. Fit those pieces in first, then fill in around them.
• If you get to the last piece and find everything has fit but there’s no room for the final one, don’t scrap the whole board. Often, by simply adjusting one or two pieces one at a time, you can figure out how they all work together.

Escape

• Work backwards. Determine which blocks need to move where in order for your pink block to escape, then determine how you can get them to move.
• Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by how many blocks are on the board. Some may not even need to be moved.
• Pieces don’t slide all the way, like on ice. You can adjust them anywhere within the free space they can move through, so don’t feel locked in to pushing them all the way in one direction or another.

The remainder of the games unlock gradually as you finish levels of the above games, so play a lot of the games above to unlock the rest!

Rolling Ball

• Rolling Ball is the first game you’ll unlock, and you’ll get it easily as you try out the other games.
• Unlike some of the other games, you don’t need to use all the pieces in order to finish the puzzle, so try to find the most efficient path regardless of whether or not some spaces are left out.
• Move useless, empty blocks out of the way early on to ensure you have the space to shuffle the blocks you can actually use.

Finally, two bonus tips:

• The remainder of the games: Number Link, Shikaku, Colours, and Fill, are unlockable by reaching certain level milestones or paying lots of in-game currency. You’ll gain levels fairly rapidly by finishing puzzles, so you don’t need to bother purchasing the currency with real money.
• Wait a few seconds after each game before hitting “Next,” as ads will often pop up just after this screen and you’ll end up accidentally tapping on them and opening the App Store or Google Play without meaning to. You’ll also have to close out of some ads twice (once on the left, once on the right) to move on when they do pop up.

Rebekah Valentine

Certified bookwyrm, Pokemon master, and lover of all things cute, I'm happiest with a Nintendo handheld in one hand and a novel in the other. I greatly resemble an Animal Crossing character. Email me: [email protected]