Switch Puzzle
Toggle a cell and its 4 neighbors simultaneously. 5x5 logic puzzle — turn every light off.
📖 How to Play
- Tap a cell: it and its 4 orthogonal neighbors all toggle at once
- Clear the board by turning every one of the 25 cells OFF
- Fewer moves and faster time = higher score
- Score = max(100, 10000 − moves×100 − time×10)
- Reset to start the same board over
About this game
Switch Puzzle (a Lights Out–style game) asks you to turn off all 25 lights on a 5×5 grid. Tapping a cell toggles that cell plus its four orthogonal neighbours — five cells at once.
Because one move affects five cells, clearing lights intuitively always breaks down somewhere: a light you already turned off flips back on when you fix its neighbour. You have to design the whole sequence rather than improvise.
One crucial property: pressing the same cell twice undoes it, so every cell is simply 'pressed' or 'not pressed'. That means the order of your moves doesn't matter at all — only which set of cells you press. Understanding that is the first real step toward solving it.
Tips & strategy
- Pressing a cell twice cancels it out, so order is irrelevant — the answer is purely which set of cells you press
- The standard method is 'chase the lights': press the cell below each lit cell to clear the row above, repeating downward
- Once you've chased to the bottom row, the leftover pattern tells you which top-row cells to press to finish
- Fewer moves score higher (score = max(100, 10000 − moves × 100 − seconds × 10)), so avoid random pressing
- If you tangle the board, reset it — reworking the sequence on the same layout is faster than improvising out
- To clear row one you press row two — internalising that mapping alone makes the puzzle much easier
FAQ
Q. What are the rules?
A. Tapping a cell toggles it and its four orthogonal neighbours — five cells at once. Turn all 25 lights off to clear.
Q. Does move order matter?
A. No. Pressing a cell twice cancels out, so only the set of cells you press determines the result.
Q. Is every board solvable?
A. Yes, the boards dealt are solvable, and the standard 'chase the lights' method will solve them.
Q. How is score calculated?
A. score = max(100, 10000 − moves × 100 − seconds × 10) — fewer moves and faster times score higher.
Q. Is the starting layout random?
A. Yes, a different arrangement each play. Every layout dealt is solvable, so the standard chase-the-lights method will always get you there.