Play the 15 puzzle online

The 15 puzzle is the classic 4×4 sliding puzzle: fifteen numbered tiles, one gap, and the tiles to put back in order. Every shuffle is made from 256 real moves, so it can always be solved. Free, with no app, no sign-up and nothing to dismiss before you play; it works offline and plays from the keyboard.

How to play the 15 puzzle

1. Tap or click a tile next to the gap to slide it; tapping further along the row or column slides the whole run.
2. On a keyboard, an arrow key slides the tile next to the gap in that direction; Tab and Enter pick and slide a specific tile.
3. Arrange tiles 1 to 15 in reading order with the gap in the bottom-right.
4. Each tile that moves one cell counts as one move.
5. Undo and redo are unlimited, and a hint marks a tile to slide.

15 puzzle strategy: reduce it to an 8 puzzle

The 4×4 board has more than ten trillion positions, but you only ever need to think about a few tiles at a time. The plan: finish the top row, finish the left column, and the rest is an 8 puzzle.

Top row: 1 and 2, then 3 and 4 together

Place 1 and 2 directly. Then put 4 in the spot where 3 belongs, bring 3 right under it, and move the gap into the top-right corner by going around them. Slide 4 right and 3 up: both are home.

Left column: 5, then 9 and 13 together

Place 5 below 1. Then use the same pairing trick turned sideways: put 13 where 9 belongs, 9 to its right, bring the gap under 13, and slide 13 down and 9 left.

Now it is an 8 puzzle

The lower-right 3×3 holds 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15. Solve its top row (6, 7, 8) and left column (10, 14) the same way, then rotate 11, 12 and 15 around the last 2×2.

Using the hint

Early in a game the 4×4 search is too large to finish, so the hint marks the Closest move, the slide that brings the tiles nearest to home. Near the end it shows the Optimal move.

Daily, stats and printables

The move counter and timer start with your first slide, and the timer pauses when you switch tabs. Stats are kept per board size in your browser: played, won, win rate, best and average time. The 15 puzzle board has its own records, separate from 3×3 and 5×5.

Undo and redo are unlimited. The first two hints in each puzzle are free; if ads are switched on later, further hints offer a short ad or a 30-second wait. Every shuffle has a puzzle code such as A7K3Q, so ?p= replays the same start, and Share result copies your time and moves. There is no daily sliding puzzle and no printable version.

Plays anywhere, no app, no account

The 15 puzzle board fills a phone screen with tiles large enough to tap, and every tile can be reached with Tab and slid with Enter or the arrow keys. Tidy Puzzles runs entirely in your browser: there is no app to install, no account to create and no interstitial before you can play. After the first visit the game also works offline, because each puzzle is generated on your device from a seed. Every board can be played with the keyboard alone, on a phone or a desktop, and your stats and unfinished puzzles stay in this browser rather than on a server.