Daily Hex a Hop
The rule
Hop to a neighbouring tile. The one you leave falls away. Clear the whole board.
Tap any tile touching the one you are on. There are six of them, not four. Undo takes back a hop.
Because a tile is gone the moment you step off it, finishing means landing on every tile exactly once and never needing to return.
Where it goes wrong
Watch for tiles that only touch the board in one place. Once you pass by one without taking it, nothing can reach it again and the board is already lost even though it still looks fine.
So work the edges and the thin necks early, and leave the open middle until last, where you will still have choices.
In your hands
A route with no way back is the same tension as a burr you have taken apart: easy to open, and then you have to remember the way. More in brain teasers.
Every Board Can Be Cleared
A tile collapses as soon as you leave it, so clearing a board means visiting every tile exactly once. That is a route with a name, a hamiltonian path, and finding one on an arbitrary shape is notoriously awkward. So these boards are not searched, they are built: the route is laid down first and the board is simply whatever it passed through. Every level therefore has at least one way through, and the generator never has to prove anything.
Having a way through is not the same as it being easy to see. Most wrong hops do not announce themselves, they strand a tile somewhere behind you, which is why undo is here.
More to Play
There are twenty four daily sudoku variants, a sokoban, a numberlink and a hashiwokakero.
Small enough to live on a desk and be picked up whenever a few minutes go spare. See the 3 Piece Cross, or the rest of the collection.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you play Hex a Hop?
Hop to a neighbouring tile. The one you leave falls away. Clear the whole board.
Is Hex a Hop free to play?
Yes. There is a new hex a hop here every day, free, with no account and nothing to install. It plays in the browser on a phone or a computer, and it remembers where you got to.
Can every puzzle be solved?
Yes. Clearing a board means landing on every tile exactly once, so the route is laid down first and the board is whatever it passed through. A wrong hop can still strand a tile, which is what undo is for.