Math Games for Adults: Free Number Puzzles

What makes a math game good for adults

It comes down to three things that these pages state. First, the thinking is yours to do: in Hollyhock Math Path you choose the order of the signs on the way up the hill, in Bergamot Parlor 24 you find a way to make 24 from four cards, in Sprout Killer Sudoku you work out which digits can fill a cage, in Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box you choose which tiles to shut for a roll, and in Thimbleberry Camp Dice you decide whether to bank or roll on. Second, there is no countdown. Hollyhock Math Path, Bergamot Parlor 24, Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box, Chickadee Hill Cribbage, Mulberry Lane Bakery and Thimbleberry Camp Dice each say nothing is timed, and Sprout Killer Sudoku’s timer only records how long a puzzle took and stops whenever the game is paused or hidden.

Third, help is built in, and it explains. Hollyhock Math Path shows each gate’s sum in a bubble before you step through, and its Peek marks the best next gate from where you stand. Bergamot Parlor 24 has two-step hints: the first shows a first merge, the second a whole way to 24. Sprout Killer Sudoku’s Hint explains the next step in a sentence, and its cage sign lists every combination of digits a cage could hold. Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box dims tiles that cannot be part of any set for the roll, Chickadee Hill Cribbage says every count line by line, and Thimbleberry Camp Dice keeps its scoring chart one tap away. The table below lists the rest. Hints are buttons you press, so you choose how much help to take.

These are puzzles to enjoy, not brain training. CozyWorld makes no claims about memory, math ability or health benefits for any of them.

Which game for which kind of math

For all four operations, Hollyhock Math Path is a number puzzle you walk. You start with the number on the cottage gate, and every hedgerow above has two to four gates with signs such as +5, −3, ×2 and ÷3. The paths fork and rejoin, so you choose the order the signs come in, and the order decides the result: a +4 gate before a ×3 gate is worth 12, but after it only 4. Division drops any remainder, so 7 ÷ 2 = 3. The game counts every route up the hill and gives three leaves for the best number possible. Meadow trails use plus, minus and times, Orchard trails add divide gates, and Ridge trails bring numbers below zero and flip gates such as ×−2, where −30 becomes 60.

For working with all four operations at once, Bergamot Parlor 24 is the traditional Make 24 puzzle. Four number cards are dealt, and you tap a card, an operation and a second card to merge them into one card with the result, until one card is left. Every card is used once, and fractions on the way are fine: 3, 3, 8 and 8 can only make 24 as 8 ÷ (3 − 8 ÷ 3). By the game’s own solver, 404 of the 495 hands of cards 1 to 9 can make 24, and 1,362 of the 1,820 hands of ace to king. Its “Can it be done?” mode deals hands that cannot, so part of the skill is calling No answer.

For adding up, try Sprout Killer Sudoku and Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box. In Sprout Killer Sudoku the digits in each dotted cage must add up to the small sum in its corner without repeating, and every row, column and box still holds 1 to 9. Easy puzzles need only cage combinations and singles. Medium adds the 45 rule: every row, column and box adds up to 45, so subtracting the cages that sit wholly inside one shows what is left over.

In Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box you roll two dice, add them, then tap open tiles that add up to the roll and shut them. A roll of 9 can shut the 9, or 6 and 3, or 5 and 4, or 4, 3 and 2, among others. What stays open is your score, so you add again at the end, and lower is better.

For doubling, Mulberry Lane Bakery is the classic 2048. Slide the tiles, and two equal tiles that bump together merge into one worth both, so two 2s make a 4 and two 4s make an 8, all the way up to 2048 on the 4 by 4 board. The number stays on every tile, so you never need to learn the baked-good ladder to play. There is also a 3 by 3 board whose goal is 256 and a 5 by 5 board whose goal is 4096.

For counting cards, Chickadee Hill Cribbage scores fifteens, pairs and runs. In the play, face cards count 10, aces 1 and every other card its number, and you peg 2 points for making the count 15 and 2 for exactly 31. In the show, every combination of cards that makes 15 scores 2. The game says each count the way players say it at the table, such as fifteen two, fifteen four, a pair is six, and you can count your own hand first and then check it against the right count.

For odds and risk, Thimbleberry Camp Dice is Farkle. Each 1 scores 100, each 5 scores 50 and three of a kind is 100 times the number, with three 1s worth 1,000, so you keep a running total, and every throw is a choice between banking it and rolling the dice that are left. A throw with nothing that scores is a farkle, and the turn’s points are lost. Its page gives the chance of that by the game’s exact count over every throw: 2.31 percent with six dice, 7.72 with five, 15.74 with four, 27.78 with three, 44.44 with two and 66.67 percent with one. The Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box page has its own figure: with the best possible play in the classic 1 to 9 box, about 1 round in 10 shuts the box, by the game’s own exact calculation.

Number logic without the arithmetic

Some number puzzles use numbers as clues rather than sums. Sprout Sudoku is classic 9x9 sudoku: every row, column and box holds 1 to 9 once, with 600 puzzles from Gentle to Expert, hints that explain the next step in plain words and no lives or mistake limits. Little Stitches is a nonogram, where the counts beside each row and column are runs of stitched squares: it has 72 patterns, starts on small 5x5 grids and gives unlimited hints that explain each step. Leaf Pile Nap is a Minesweeper-style puzzle: each raked leaf pile shows how many animal tiles are in the eight piles around it, the animals’ shapes are known, there is no timer, and every garden can be cleared without a guess.

If you already know sudoku, Sprout Killer Sudoku is the same grid with cage sums added, so it sits between the two kinds of game.

Playing on a computer, tablet or phone

Each game in the table lists keyboard, mouse and touch controls and supports desktop, tablet and mobile screens, and each has a toolbar with pause, help, optional sound and fullscreen.

How you play differs a little. In Hollyhock Math Path you tap a glowing gate to see its sum and tap it again, or press Walk, to go through. In Bergamot Parlor 24 you tap a card, one of four wooden operation tokens and a second card. In Sprout Killer Sudoku you tap a cell and then a digit key. In Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box you tap tiles to pick them, then press Shut, or let the tiles flip the moment they add up. In Chickadee Hill Cribbage you tap two cards to lay away to the crib and then tap a card to lay it, and cards that would take the count past 31 are dimmed. In Mulberry Lane Bakery you swipe anywhere in the bakery, and the page does not scroll while you swipe. In Thimbleberry Camp Dice you tap a die to hold it, with Roll and Bank side by side at the bottom of the screen.

On a computer, each game also plays from the keyboard: Left and Right or 1 to 4 to choose a gate and Enter to walk in Hollyhock Math Path, 1 to 4 for a card and + − * / for an operation in Bergamot Parlor 24, arrow keys and 1 to 9 in Sprout Killer Sudoku, number keys to pick tiles in Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box, arrow keys with Enter in Chickadee Hill Cribbage, arrow keys or W, A, S and D in Mulberry Lane Bakery, and the number keys 1 to 6 to hold dice in Thimbleberry Camp Dice.

What gets saved, and where

Each page describes saving on the device and browser you play on, and none needs an account. Hollyhock Math Path saves after every step: any walk in progress, your best number and leaves for every trail, and today’s path with your daily streak. Bergamot Parlor 24 saves the hand in progress in each mode with every merge, every pack hand you have made and your results for today’s four. Sprout Killer Sudoku saves the puzzle in progress at each level and today’s puzzle, with every digit and note, plus your vegetable patch and best times. Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box, Chickadee Hill Cribbage, Mulberry Lane Bakery and Thimbleberry Camp Dice save the game in progress, your settings and your statistics in the browser’s local storage. Chickadee Hill Cribbage saves the hand card by card. In Meadowlark Barn Shut the Box, Mulberry Lane Bakery and Thimbleberry Camp Dice, every roll, throw or new tile comes from a seed saved with your game, so a reload never changes it.

Because there are no accounts, progress is not shared between devices: a phone and a computer each keep their own.