How it works
How the daily puzzle works, in 45 seconds
A guided start to a game, about a minute
How to try equations before you play them
The Workbench in 45 seconds
- Place one or more tiles in a single row or column, touching what's already on the board.
- Every line of 2 or more touching tiles, across and down, must split into a true equation. You don't place symbols; the game finds where they go.
- Operators are + − × ÷. The equals sign can sit last or first: 297 reads as 2 = 9 − 7.
- Multiplying by 0 and dividing 0 don't count. Adding or subtracting 0 is fine: 7 + 0 = 7, and so is 7 − 7 = 0.
- Multi-digit numbers can't start with 0. Two tiles alone can never be an equation.
- The first play covers the star and uses at least 3 tiles. The star has no bonus.
- × or ÷ equations earn a bonus by length, after multipliers: 4 tiles +4, 5 +9, 6 +15, 7 +22, 8 or more +32. No bonus for 3 tiles, or when a number is 0, 1 or 10 (or the answer is 0 or 1). Playing all 7 tiles earns +20.
- Making more than one equation in a play earns a bonus that doubles as you go: 2 equations +5, 3 +15, 4 +35, 5 +75, 6 +155.
- Show a move costs part of the points of the move it shows, whether or not you play it. The cost comes off when your turn ends, and a score never goes below 0: 50% against Easy, 75% against Medium, 100% against Hard or a person. From your 4th hint on, every hint costs 100%. You get one hint per turn: pressing it again shows the same move at no extra charge. If no move is found, it's free.
- The second player starts with 8 tiles instead of 7 to make up for going second. After their first play, racks refill to 7 as usual.
- My games keeps every game you start on this device: games against the computer, pass and play, puzzles and online games. Switch between them any time; nothing is lost, including tiles you've placed but not played.
- Online: choose New game, then Online. Start a game to get a 6-character code, or join with a friend's code. Each player sees only their own tiles, and the server checks every move. Hints are off in online games.
- Drag tiles from your rack onto the board, or tap a tile and then a square. Drag placed tiles to move them, or back to your rack.
- In the Workbench, drag tiles and symbols to put them exactly where you want. Drop one on another to swap it in, or drag it off the screen to remove it. Flip ⇄ rewrites your equation in another order, like 72 − 4 = 68 into 68 + 4 = 72, and the Workbench suggests any order that fits the board.
- Tap a tile on the board, or drag across a line, to pick a base. A base can skip empty squares: tap the 6, then the 4 two squares away, and the Workbench knows one of your tiles has to fill the gap. Then open the Workbench to try math with the base and your tiles before you commit. The Workbench works without a base too, as scratch math. It's free.
- The game ends when the bag is empty and someone plays out, when both sides pass in a row with the bag empty, or after 6 scoreless turns. Leftover tile points count against you.
Puzzles
- Fill every red-outlined square using exactly the tiles in your rack so every line is a true equation. Any arrangement that works counts.
- Press Check any time, even with squares still empty. Each tile you placed turns green if it's in the right spot and red if it needs to move. If more than one answer works, the game judges your tiles against the one closest to your board.
- In Easy and Medium random puzzles you can reveal a tile. Each reveal costs double the one before: 30 seconds, then 1 minute, 2, 4 and so on. Hard puzzles and the daily puzzle have no reveals.
- The daily puzzle is the same for everyone and resets at midnight. It comes in four levels, each its own puzzle: Easy (with one free reveal), Medium, Hard and Expert 💣 (EquaCross Plus). Solving any level counts for your streak. Each level gives you 5 checks: use them all without solving and that level is done for the day, so try another level to keep your streak. Random and archive puzzles have unlimited checks. Random puzzles come in three sizes.
2TDoubles that tile's points
3TTriples that tile's points
2EDoubles the whole equation
3ETriples the whole equation
Full rules, scoring and examples
