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Arrows Go

Arrows Go
  • Free to play
  • No download
  • Works on phone

Arrows Go: Three Lives, Twelve Shapes

Every line on the board wants to leave in the direction its arrowhead points. It can only go if nothing stands on the way out. Tap the wrong one and it costs a life, and you only get three, so the game is about reading the board before you touch it.

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How to read a board

  1. 1

    Find the arrowhead first

    A piece can be five cells long and turn three times, and none of that matters until you find the end with the arrowhead. That end is where it leaves from, and the whole line follows it out.

  2. 2

    Sight down the exit line

    From the arrowhead, run your eye straight to the edge of the board. Anything you cross is blocking this piece. The first thing you cross is the one to deal with next. On the big late-game boards, pinch to zoom in for a closer look, then tap Fit to see the whole board again.

  3. 3

    Open the shape from its edges

    Lines near the outline usually have short exit paths, so they clear first and leave lanes behind them. Working outside in beats picking at the middle.

What changes as you go

The board grows

Level one starts on a 10 by 10 field. The board grows in stages as you advance, passing 20 by 20 around level twenty, and settles at 40 by 40 for the highest levels.

The lines get longer and bendier

Early boards are mostly short straight lines, three cells at the very start. Later ones mix in much longer lines, up to twelve cells that turn as they go, and only the arrowhead tells you where the whole thing is heading.

Fewer lines look free at a glance

The generator caps how many lines can move on the opening board, and that cap tightens as you climb, from nearly every piece open at level one to a little under half at the hardest boards. There are always safe taps to find, just proportionally fewer of them at a glance.

Habits that keep your lives

Never tap to find out

A guess costs a life. Hint costs nothing and always names a line that can move right now, so there is no situation where guessing is the better option.

Chase the blocker, not the piece

When a line is stuck, the fix is the first piece along its exit path, not the line itself. Chains of two or three of these are common and unwind in one direction only.

Treat a retry as a second read

Running out of lives puts the same board back, not a new one. Everything you worked out still holds, so the second attempt is usually much faster.

Arrows Go questions

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