Lights out

How to play Lights out

All cells in the 5 by 5 grid start as a mix of lit and dark squares. Tap a cell to toggle it and its four neighbours: up, down, left and right. Edge cells toggle fewer neighbours. Your goal is to turn off every single light. The game tracks how many taps you used. There is no time pressure, just see how few moves you need to clear the board.

Tips

• Solve row by row from top to bottom, do not jump around
• After fixing the top four rows, the bottom row tells you the rest
• Plan two or three moves ahead, lights out punishes guessing
• If you get stuck, restart, the same puzzle has many paths to the solution

About Lights out

Lights Out was a handheld toy released by Tiger Electronics in 1995 with a glowing red LED grid. The puzzle is older than the toy. Mathematicians had been studying similar parity puzzles for decades. Every starting board has a known shortest solution that pure logic can reach. The fun part is finding it without writing equations. Our digital version gives you fresh layouts and an undo button so you can experiment without restarting.

More logic games

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• Memory: Find every matching pair. Easy on the brain, hard to put down.
• Sudoku mini: A quick 6x6 sudoku you can finish on a coffee break.
• Slide fifteen: The classic 15 puzzle. Slide tiles into order in as few moves as possible.
• Bomb sweep: Find every safe square without setting off a bomb.
• Mahjong solitaire: Match and remove free tile pairs to clear the pyramid. A calming classic with 144 tiles.

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