10-15 min
Matchstick Puzzle

Matchstick Puzzle

Puzzle

A sum spelled out in matches, and it is wrong. Move one match — sometimes two — and nothing else, until it is right.

Score 0 Best 0

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Home / Puzzle / Matchstick Puzzle

Matchstick Puzzle is the classic matchstick brain teaser, free and online: a row of matches spells an arithmetic equation that does not add up, and you have to fix it by moving a fixed number of matches from one place to another. Nothing is added and nothing is taken away — the match you lift has to land somewhere, which is what makes these puzzles harder than they look. Every digit is seven possible matches, and the sign is made of matches too, so a plus is a minus with one extra upright and an equals sign is two bars that a single match can rearrange. Ten levels: six that give you one match to move, growing from single digits to six-digit rows, and four that give you two and are checked to be impossible with one. Every puzzle is generated from a seed by scrambling a correct equation backwards, so a solution of exactly the stated length exists before the puzzle does, and the search that counts every one-match answer is what proves the budget is honest. Tap a match to pick it up, tap a slot to put it down, and undo as often as you like. No download, no account, no timer.

How to play Matchstick Puzzle

  1. The row of matches spells an equation, and it is wrong.
  2. Tap a match to pick it up. The slots it can go into appear as pale dashed outlines.
  3. Tap one of those slots to put the match down. That counts as one move.
  4. Tapping the match you are holding a second time puts it back where it was and costs nothing.
  5. Matches are never added or removed. Every one you lift has to land somewhere on the row.
  6. Each digit is drawn from up to seven matches, in the same arrangement a calculator uses.
  7. The signs are matches too: a plus is a minus with one upright added, and an equals sign is two bars.
  8. The readout above the row always shows what the matches currently spell, so you can see the effect of a move before deciding whether to keep it.
  9. The first six levels give you one match to move. The last four give you two, and have been checked to be impossible with one.
  10. Undo takes back the last match you moved. Restart puts every match back where it started.
  11. New Puzzle deals a different equation at the same level, and there are hundreds per level.
  12. Three stars is solving it without restarting.

Tips

  • Read the whole row before touching anything. The match that is wrong is often not in the digit that looks wrong — taking one out of the answer to fix an operand is the move these puzzles are built around.
  • Check the sign first on the harder rows. A plus becoming a minus is a single upright match, and that match has to go somewhere useful.
  • A 6 and a 9 are one match apart, so are 5 and 6, and 3 and 9. Learning the pairs that differ by one match is most of the game.
  • The 8 is the richest source: it uses all seven matches, so it can donate one to anywhere on the row and still be a 0, a 6 or a 9.
  • Watch the readout while you hold a match. It tells you the moment a row stops being a readable sum, which is usually the sign that the match came from the wrong place.
  • On a two-match level, do not look for two independent fixes. The pair almost always works together: one match leaves a digit and the other arrives in the same one.
  • Nothing is lost by trying. Undo costs nothing, restart only costs a star, and there is no timer anywhere in the game.
  • If a level is not going your way, New Puzzle is a genuinely different equation at the same difficulty rather than a reshuffle of the same one.

FAQ

Is Matchstick Puzzle free to play?

Yes. It runs in the browser with no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy. All ten levels are included and unlock as you clear them, and each one deals unlimited fresh puzzles.

How do you play a matchstick puzzle?

A row of matches spells an equation that is false, and you are given a fixed number of matches to move. Moving means picking one up from where it is and putting it down in an empty slot — you never add a match and never take one away, so the total is the same before and after. When the row spells a true equation, the puzzle is done.

Can I remove a match instead of moving it?

No, and that is the constraint the whole genre rests on. Every match you lift has to land in a slot somewhere on the row. Puzzles that let you remove or add matches are a different kind of teaser; this one keeps the count fixed, which is what makes the answer feel inevitable once you see it.

Do the plus and equals signs count as matches?

Yes, and they are often the answer. A minus is one horizontal match, a plus is that same match with an upright added, and an equals sign is two horizontal bars. Turning a plus into a minus frees exactly one match for use elsewhere, which is the single most common trick in these puzzles.

Are the puzzles always solvable?

Yes, by construction. Each one is made by taking a correct equation and moving matches out of place at random — so the answer exists before the puzzle does, and undoing that scramble is always available. Every scrambled step is also checked to still spell readable digits, because a row of nonsense is not a puzzle.

How do you know a two-match puzzle really needs two?

Because every single-match move is tried. A board has only a few dozen match positions, so the game enumerates every possible pick-up-and-put-down pair and evaluates the result — the complete answer set, not a sample. A two-match puzzle is only kept if that enumeration finds nothing, and a one-match puzzle only if it finds something.

Are the puzzles random?

Generated from a seed rather than random. The same level always deals the same first puzzle, New Puzzle steps to a genuinely different one, and pressing it repeatedly cycles rather than running out. Nothing about a puzzle depends on when you played it.

Is there a time limit?

None. There is no clock, no lives and no penalty for experimenting. Undo is unlimited and free; restarting a row costs a star and nothing else.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. The row is drawn as scalable vector graphics, so it fits the screen at any size, and every match has a hit area wider than the match itself so it can be tapped with a finger. Picking up and putting down are separate taps, with no dragging.