Firefly Paths

What is Firefly Paths?

It's a path drawing puzzle, sometimes called a flow puzzle or number link. The grid has pairs of colored fireflies. You connect each pair with a single path that runs from square to square, up, down, left or right. Paths can't cross or branch, and the puzzle is only solved when every pair is joined and every square on the board is covered by some path.

That second rule is what makes it interesting. Joining the pairs is often easy. Joining them so nothing is left empty takes some thought. Firefly Paths is free, runs in your browser on phone, tablet or computer, and has nothing to download.

How to play

• Drag from a firefly toward its twin of the same color. The path follows your finger or mouse one square at a time.
• Reach the twin and the pair lights up.
• Drag back along your own path to shorten it.
• Start dragging from the middle of an existing path to pick it up from that point and reroute the rest.
• If you draw through another color's path, that path gets cut back to where you crossed it. Pull your path back during the same drag and the other one comes back.
• When every pair is linked and every square is filled, the meadow lights up. If all pairs are linked but squares are still empty, the game will tell you to fill them.

The top of the screen shows how many pairs you've joined and how much of the grid is glowing, as a percentage.

Fences

From Old Mill on, some puzzles have short fences between squares. A path can't step across a fence, even though both squares are open.

Bridges

From Lantern Bridge on, some squares hold a little bridge. A bridge is the one place two paths can cross: one goes straight across it left to right, the other straight over it top to bottom. Both directions need to be used before the grid counts as filled, and a path can't turn on a bridge.

Controls (phone and computer)

Touch and mouse both work by dragging. Undo and Reset sit under the board. With a keyboard:

Stars, strokes and hints

Stars are based on strokes. A stroke is one drag that changes the board. The best possible is one stroke per pair.

• 3 stars: no more strokes than there are pairs. In other words, draw each path once and get it right.
• 2 stars: up to three extra strokes.
• 1 star: any solve.

Using a hint caps that solve at 2 stars. A hint draws one complete path exactly where it goes in the solution. You start with 3 hints and earn more: one for your first solve each day, one for every third new puzzle you finish, and one each time you finish the daily.

Meadows, Wander and the Daily Glow

The 60 puzzles are spread over six meadows of ten. Each one has its own night sky and a meadow picture that lights up a little more with every puzzle you solve there. Finish 7 of a meadow's 10 puzzles to open the next one.

Wander is endless. It deals out fresh generated puzzles from 6×6 up to 9×9, some with fences or a bridge, and counts how many you've lit, with a milestone every ten.

The Daily Glow is a new 7×7 puzzle every day, the same for everyone, with six or seven pairs and a couple of fences. It's scored out of 1,000: you lose 2 points for each second, 25 for every stroke beyond one per pair, and 150 for each hint, with a floor of 100. Come back each day to grow your streak and check the leaderboard.

Trails

Total stars unlock new looks for your paths: Glow to start, Beads at 30 stars, Ribbon at 75 and Starlight at 130.

Flow puzzle tips and strategy

• Start with pairs on the edge. If two fireflies both sit on the border, the path between them very often hugs the wall. Corners are even more forced: a corner square only has two neighbors.
• Do the short, obvious ones next. Two fireflies right next to each other, or one square apart with no other way around, can usually be joined straight away.
• Watch for dead ends. If a path would leave an empty square with only one open neighbor, nothing can pass through it. Some path would have to end there, and only fireflies are endpoints. Reroute so every pocket can be filled.
• Long paths fill the gaps. When there's a big empty area at the end, it usually belongs to whichever pair has the most room to wander. Let that path snake back and forth through the space.
• Don't box in a pair. Before you finish a path, check that it isn't cutting another firefly off from its twin. Paths can't cross outside of bridges.
• Use bridges as anchors. A bridge has to be crossed in both directions by two different colors. Work out which pair goes across and which goes over early, because it pins down a lot of the board.
• Think first, drag once. For 3 stars, every path has to go down in a single stroke. On a hard grid, trace the route with your eyes before you touch anything.

If you like this, try Mosaic Logic for nonogram picture puzzles or Ink Bridge, where the lines you draw become part of a physics puzzle.

Questions