How to play
Two rules, and then the whole game is working out the order.
The short version: tap an arrow and it slides off the board the way it points — but only if nothing is in the way. Freeze a color to make those arrows see-through so the rest can pass. Three lives per board once you are past the opening few, and no timer.
The one rule everything else sits on
Every arrow has exactly one way out: straight ahead, the way its head points. Tap it and it goes, off the edge and out of the puzzle.
It only goes if the lane is empty. One arrow anywhere between it and the edge and it does not move — it lunges, hits what is in the way, and slides back where it started. The first time you do that to a particular arrow, it costs a life.
So a full board is not a board of arrows. It is a board of arrows waiting on each other, and the puzzle is the order. Find the one arrow that can leave right now, send it, and look at what its empty lane just freed.
Read the board backwards
The instinct is to pick the arrow you want gone and try to clear a path for it. That is the slow way round, and it is where most lives go.
Start at the edges instead. An arrow one cell from the edge it points at is almost always free. Take those first, and each one opens the lane behind it. A board that looked solid usually has three or four of these sitting in plain sight, and clearing them changes everything behind them.
When you do get stuck, ask what is blocking the arrow you want — then ask what is blocking that one. Two or three steps back you will usually hit something that can move.
Color Phase
Every arrow is one of five colors: blue, green, yellow, purple or orange. Pick a color and every arrow wearing it turns see-through.
A frozen arrow does two things at once:
- You cannot tap it. While it is frozen it is not going anywhere.
- Nothing else is blocked by it. Other arrows slide straight through it as if the cell were empty.
That trade is the whole puzzle. Freezing green might open four lanes at once — and it also means the green arrow you were about to send is now stuck until you unfreeze it. Tap the same color again to let it go.
Only one color is frozen at a time, so picking a second color releases the first.
When a board looks impossible, run through the colors on the board before you touch anything. Freezing takes no lives and nothing moves until you tap an arrow, so there is no cost to looking. One of them usually turns the board loose.
Lives, and what costs you one
Three lives per board, except on the first five. Those do not count them and do not show the hearts, so you can poke at a stuck arrow while you are still learning what blocks what. After that you lose a life only for tapping an arrow that cannot move, and only the first time you tap that particular arrow: once it is marked, re-tapping it is free until it leaves. Nothing else on the board takes a life from you. Freezing and unfreezing colors is free, and so is thinking about it for ten minutes.
Which means a life is really a wrong guess about whether a lane is clear. On a crowded board with long arrows winding through it, it is worth tracing the lane with your eye before you commit.
The three tools
They appear as you get further in, and they are the same for everyone — nothing here is sold. They do run out, though: you get three of each, and they top back up to three once a day. When you are out, an optional ad buys another charge.
- Hint — points you at a move that works from where the board is now.
- Eraser — takes one arrow off the board, wherever it is and whatever is around it.
- Wand — sweeps away several arrows that already have a clear path out, which is the fast way to unpick a corner.
Two more cost nothing and never run out. Once the boards get big, a button draws every arrow's exit lane at once, so you can see what is really blocked; and when a board is wider than the screen, another pulls the camera back for a few seconds to show you all of it.
The daily challenge
Alongside Home there is a second tab, Challenge. It holds one puzzle a day, and every player in the world gets the same one that day.
It is worked out from the date rather than downloaded, so it needs no connection and no account, and it is there whether or not you have signal. It feeds the same streak your normal play does. Finishing any level on a given day keeps the streak alive, and the daily is one way to do that. Miss a whole day and it goes back to zero. The streak lives on your device with the rest of your progress.
The tab is there from the start but stays locked until level 50, showing a padlock until then. Its difficulty comes from the date, not from how far you have got, so it is not tuned to you and it varies from one day to the next. None of them are gentle.
What changes as you go
The rules never change. The boards do: they grow, they stop being rectangles, and the arrows get longer and start to bend, so a single arrow can wind across half the board and its lane is no longer a straight line you can check at a glance.
Shaped boards have one catch. A lane runs to the edge of the rectangle the board sits in, not to the edge of the shape, so it carries straight on through any hole or notch. An arrow on the far side of a gap still blocks you.
Colors matter more too. Early boards are solvable by order alone. Later ones need the right freeze at the right moment, and that is the point at which it stops being a tidy-up and starts being a logic puzzle.
Common questions
How do you play Arrows: Color Maze?
Tap an arrow and it slides off the board the way it points. It only moves if every cell between it and the edge is empty, so the puzzle is the order you tap in: clear one lane, and the arrow behind it can go.
What does freezing a color do?
Pick one of the colors on the board and every arrow wearing it turns see-through. Frozen arrows cannot be tapped, and they no longer block anything, so other arrows slide straight through them. Tap the same color again to unfreeze it. Only one color is frozen at a time.
What happens if I tap a blocked arrow?
It lunges at whatever is in its way, bounces back to where it started, and the first time you do that to a particular arrow it costs a life. Re-tapping the same stuck arrow is free until it moves. You get three lives per board, apart from the first five, which do not count lives at all.
How do I get unstuck?
Work backwards from the edge rather than forwards from the arrow you want to move. Then check the colors on the board in turn: freezing the right one often opens several lanes at once. If nothing works there is a hint, an eraser that removes one arrow, and a wand that sweeps away several arrows that already have a clear path out. Two free assists help as well: one draws every arrow's exit lane, and one pulls the camera back on a board too big for the screen.
How does the daily challenge work?
The Challenge tab gives you one puzzle a day, and every player gets the same one. It is worked out from the date rather than fetched, so it needs no connection and no account, and your streak is kept on your device. It unlocks at level 50; until then the tab shows a padlock.
Is there a timer?
No. Nothing on the board moves until you tap it, so you can look at a puzzle for as long as you like.
Ready to try it? Get Arrows: Color Maze on Google Play — free, no account, and it plays offline.
More reading: what an unblock puzzle is · the game page · support and FAQ