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Scratch Card is a free online scratch-and-find puzzle, and it is a puzzle rather than a lottery. There is no money in it, nothing to buy, nothing wagered and no prize of any kind — the card is a board and the sets are the score. More importantly, no scratch is ever a shrug: uncover a symbol and it shows an arrow pointing at its nearest match still covered; uncover a blank and it shows exactly how many squares away the nearest symbol is, which rules out every panel closer than that. So a card is solved by reasoning rather than gambled on. Eight cards go from a small four-by-four with a generous budget to a six-by-six where you need all four sets. The budgets are set from measurement: each one is roughly what a plain clue-following strategy actually uses, so reading the clues clears it and scratching at random does not.
How to play Scratch Card
- Tap any silver panel to scratch it. Each level gives you a fixed number of scratches.
- A blank panel shows a number: how many squares away the nearest symbol is. Nothing closer than that number is a symbol, which rules out a whole area at once.
- A symbol panel shows an arrow pointing at the nearest panel holding the same symbol that is still covered.
- Every symbol appears exactly three times. Uncover all three to complete a set.
- The chips under the card show how many of each symbol you have found so far.
- Clear the number of sets the level asks for before your scratches run out.
- Distances are measured like a king moves in chess, so one square diagonally is a distance of one.
- Arrows always point at a panel you have not opened yet, so following one is never a wasted scratch.
- Finishing within a scratch or two of the theoretical minimum is three stars.
Tips
- Open a panel near the middle first. A distance reading from the centre rules out far more of the card than one from a corner.
- A blank that reads 1 is gold: every one of its eight neighbours is a candidate, and everything else nearby is not.
- Treat a reading of n as a ring. There is definitely a symbol exactly n squares away, and definitely nothing inside that.
- Once you have a symbol, just follow arrows. Two more scratches finishes that set, because the arrow never points at something already open.
- Two readings beat one. Where the rings of two different blanks cross is where a symbol almost certainly is.
- Finish a set before hunting for the next one. A half-open set is scratches already spent that have not scored anything.
- A sparse card is the harder card. Fewer symbol groups means fewer things to stumble across, so lean on the readings more.
- Do not scratch next to a panel that read a large number. Large readings are telling you where not to look.
FAQ
Is Scratch Card free to play?
Yes. It runs in the browser with no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy. All eight cards are included and unlock as you clear them.
Is there any money, gambling or prizes in this game?
None at all. Nothing is bought, nothing is wagered, nothing is won, and no number in the game stands for currency. The card is a puzzle board and the sets are a score. It shares a name with a lottery ticket and nothing else.
Is it just luck which panel I pick?
No, and that is the whole design. Every panel returns information: a blank gives the exact distance to the nearest symbol, which rules out everything closer, and a symbol points at its nearest match still covered. A card is solved by reasoning from those clues.
How is this different from Minesweeper here?
Minesweeper gives you a count of neighbours and the goal is to avoid something. Here the clues are a distance and a direction, there is nothing to avoid, and the goal is to find sets — so you are triangulating rather than counting constraints, and a wrong guess costs a scratch rather than the game.
How is the distance measured?
Like a king moves in chess: one square in any direction, including diagonally, is a distance of one. That is the distance the grid actually looks like, which is what you will estimate by eye.
Can an arrow point at a panel I have already scratched?
No. Arrows always prefer a partner that is still covered, so following one always opens something new. Without that rule a set becomes unfindable once two of its three panels are open, which was measured and fixed before this shipped.
Why is a card with fewer symbols harder?
Because there is less to stumble across. More symbol groups means more symbols scattered about, so a probe finds one sooner and the arrows take over. The later levels deliberately have fewer groups and a bigger budget.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The card is square and scales to whichever screen dimension is smaller, and every panel is a tap target.