THE IDEA: EVERY NUMBER IS A JUMP DISTANCE
Here's the thing that trips everyone up first: the numbers are not a 1-2-3 order to visit. Each one is a distance. Land on a cell showing 3 and your next move leaps exactly 3 cells in one straight line — up, down, left, or right. Land on a 1 and you shuffle one cell. The number under your feet is the only thing that decides how far you go.
Three rules, that's the whole game:
- Start top-left (S), finish bottom-right (F). Both corners are fixed. Your chain of jumps has to get from one to the other.
- Jump exactly the number, straight only. No diagonals, and you can't jump a different distance than the cell says.
- Stay on the board, don't reuse cells. A jump that flies off the edge isn't allowed, and you can't land back on a cell you've already used.
That's it. No arithmetic, no hidden clues — just "read the number, pick a direction that fits, jump." The skill is planning the route, not crunching sums.
LET'S ACTUALLY SOLVE ONE — STEP BY STEP
Here's a real 4×4 Number Maze. Every cell's got a number; S is the start corner (top-left), F is the finish (bottom-right). We'll hop from S to F one jump at a time.
The starting grid — S top-left, F bottom-right, a jump number in every cell.
Step 1 — stand on S, read its number, see where it can go.
S shows a 2, so we jump 2 cells. Up and left would shoot straight off the board — gone. That leaves two legal directions: down 2 or right 2 (the highlighted cells). Both are fair game; we want to end up bottom-right, so let's head down.
Step 2 — take the jump and land.
Down 2 cells, and we land here (ringed). The arrow shows the jump we just made. Now we do the exact same thing again from the new cell — read its number, look for a direction that fits.
Step 3 — sometimes there's only one way to go.
This cell shows a 3. We're hard against the left edge, so jumping 3 up, down, or left all sail off the board. Only right stays on the grid (the one highlighted cell). That's a forced jump — no decision to make. Big numbers near an edge are your friends: they usually leave a single legal move.
Step 4 — take the forced jump.
Right 3, landed (ringed). Two jumps down, and look how close we are — F is just below us. This cell shows a 1.
Step 5 — the last hop onto F.
Down 1 onto F — solved. Read the number, jump, land, repeat. 👻
That's the whole puzzle: a chain of jumps, each one decided by the number you're standing on. Bigger grids just mean a longer chain and a few more choices — the move never changes.
THE WHOLE METHOD, IN FOUR BEATS
Every cell you land on, run the same little loop:
- Read the number. That's how far this jump goes — a distance, not a step count.
- See which directions fit. Cross off any that fly off the board or land on a cell you've already used.
- Aim toward F. Of the legal moves, lean toward the bottom-right finish.
- Land, and repeat. The new cell's number sets up the next jump.
Stuck? Look for a forced jump you skipped — a cell where only one direction stays on the grid — or back up out of a dead end. A real Number Maze always has a clean route through; you never have to guess.
A COUPLE OF FRIENDLY HABITS
- Numbers are distances, not an order. If you catch yourself hunting for the "1" to start on, stop — you start on S, wherever its number is, and jump that far.
- Work backwards from F too. Ask which cells can reach the finish in a single jump (sitting exactly their own number away from the corner). Those make great waypoints to aim for.
- Read one jump ahead. Before you commit, glance at where the landing cell could go next. If it's a dead end — every move blocked — pick a different jump now.
THAT'S IT — GO DO ONE
Read the number, pick a direction that fits, jump, land, repeat. No sums, no rules to memorise — just a satisfying little path-planning puzzle where every cell flings you across the board. Brilliant for a quick brain-warm-up, and weirdly moreish once the route starts clicking into place, with a ghost cheering each landing home.