Guide
How to play Circuit
Circuit is a sequential path puzzle: draw one wire that hits the numbered checkpoints in order and visits every cell on the board exactly once. No diagonals, no crossings, and no cell left out. Finishing early with squares still empty means the route is wrong.
Rules
- Draw a wire through every numbered checkpoint — Start at 1 and visit 2, 3, … in order. You may step up, down, left, or right — tap, drag, or use arrow keys.
- No diagonals, skips, or leftover cells — You cannot jump diagonally, skip a checkpoint, reuse a cell, or leave any square unwired. The path is a Hamiltonian tour of the grid.
- Rewind by stepping back onto the wire — Tap a cell already on your path to rewind to that point. Hint only marks a cell that can still finish the board from here.
- Do not isolate a cell — You cannot leave a square with no orthogonal exit. If a cell is stranded, rewind — isolation is usually one wrong turn ago.
Tips
- Dead-end cells first — A cell with only one open neighbor must be an endpoint of some path segment — often next to a checkpoint.
- Lock forced corridors — A 1-cell-wide hallway has only one way through. Draw it before branching in the open field.
- Count remaining numbers — The path between n and n+1 must be long enough to reach, and must leave space for later checkpoints.
- Rewind early — If you isolate a cell, step back onto the wire instead of restarting. Isolation is usually one wrong turn ago.
Where it comes from
Numberlink, known as Arukone in Japan, asks you to connect matching numbers with paths that never cross. Circuit collapses that into a single ordered tour, which mathematicians call a Hamiltonian path on a grid. The numbered-checkpoint presentation is the form daily players know.
How it differs from similar puzzles
Classic Numberlink connects many separate pairs instead of one continuous tour, and it does not require covering every square. Some boards add walls you cannot cross, and Circuit dailies may too. Flow Free is a close cousin: pairs again, rather than a full-cover route.
Also known as
People look up Numberlink, a number path, a Hamiltonian path puzzle, or simply “draw a line through every square.” Circuit is our name.
- Numberlink
- Arukone
- Number Path
- Hamiltonian grid path
- Checkpoint path puzzle