Play Bridges puzzle (Bridges) online Works — plays right here, unlimited puzzles
Guide updated October 2026 · Runs via WebAssembly (native port)
Bridges is a connection puzzle: numbered islands sit on a grid, and you lay horizontal and vertical bridges between them until each island has as many bridges as its number and every island is linked into one network. It is published by Nikoli as Hashiwokakero. The puzzle is ready below; drag from an island towards a neighbour to build.
Controls — what does what
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse / touch |
|---|---|---|
| Build a bridge (repeat for a double; again to remove) | Ctrl+arrow, or Enter then arrow | Drag from an island towards another |
| Mark that no bridge goes here | Shift+arrow | Right-drag between two islands |
| Mark an island as finished (locks its bridges) | Space, or Enter twice | Left-click the island |
| Move between islands | Arrow keys; a digit jumps to the nearest island with that number | — |
| Show every possible bridge as a grey line | G | — |
| Undo / redo | U / R (or Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+R) | Game menu buttons |
FREE This is the complete game, free. Open source under the MIT licence: the complete puzzle, with a new grid every time.
Bridges is from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, © Simon Tatham and contributors, used under the MIT licence. Built from source by scripts/build-puzzles.mjs.
How to play
- Bridges run straight, horizontally or vertically, between two islands.
- The number on an island is the total of bridges that end there.
- At most two bridges may join the same pair of islands.
- Bridges may not cross each other.
- When you finish, every island must be reachable from every other.
Rule breaks are shown in red: an island with too many bridges, one that can no longer reach its number, or a group of islands cut off from the rest.
Sizes and difficulty
Presets are 7×7, 10×10 and 15×15, each in easy, medium and hard. Custom adds options to forbid loops in the network, to change the maximum bridges per pair from 2 to 1, 3 or 4, and to adjust how densely islands are packed.
Solving tips
Look for islands whose number equals twice their number of neighbours: they need a double bridge to each. An island with N neighbours and a number of 2N−1 needs at least one bridge to each neighbour. Never join two 1s together, or two 2s with a double bridge, unless they are the only islands, because they would form a closed group. Lock islands you have finished so a stray drag cannot change them.
Where this puzzle comes from
Bridges is part of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, a set of about forty logic puzzles written by Simon Tatham and contributors and released under the MIT licence. Every grid is generated on the spot, so the supply never runs out, and for the grid-logic puzzles the generator makes sure each has exactly one solution, reachable by reasoning rather than guessing. The version here is the collection's own code compiled to WebAssembly; the Game menu can save a puzzle to a file and load it again, and the Type menu changes the size and difficulty.
Frequently asked questions
Can I build three bridges between two islands?
Not under the default rules; the limit is two. The Custom settings let you change it to 1, 3 or 4.
Why has a group of my islands turned red?
Those islands are joined to each other with no remaining way to connect to the rest, which cannot be part of a valid solution.
Is Bridges free to play here?
Yes, with no limit on the number of puzzles. Bridges is open-source software under the MIT licence, and every grid is generated fresh when you press New game.
Does it work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. A tap works as a click and the puzzle resizes to fit the screen. Puzzles whose controls use the right mouse button are easier with a mouse.
More you can play in your browser
Related guides
- Number loop puzzle (Loopy)Play the number loop puzzle free in your browser: draw a single closed loop so each number
- Network tile-rotation puzzle (Net)Play Net free in your browser: rotate scrambled pipe tiles until every square joins one ne
- Arrow path puzzle (Signpost)Play Signpost free in your browser: link every square into one numbered chain, each step l
- Untangle (planar graph puzzle) (Untangle)Play Untangle free in your browser: drag the points of a tangled graph until no two lines
Want a game like this on your own site?
Bridges puzzle (Bridges) isn't ours to give away — we host it, we didn't write it. But eleven of the games here we did write from scratch, and those are free for anyone to put on their own page: one line of HTML, no account, no permission, no attribution beyond a credit line.