How to play PathRight (and get unstuck)

PathRight is about planning ahead. The rules take ten seconds to learn, and the 1,200 levels take rather longer.

The rules

• Swipe to slide the ball. It doesn't move one square: it keeps going until it hits a wall or the edge of the board.
• Every square it passes gets painted.
• Paint the whole board to win.

That's it. Because each move runs all the way to a wall, you can't just wander about. Every slide commits you to a whole line.

The four tiers

Levels are grouped into Easy, Hard, Pro and Expert, from small warm-up boards up to 11×11 Expert boards. You can move between tiers whenever you like.

Portals

From level 41, some boards have pairs of portals. When the ball slides into one, it comes out of its partner and carries on sliding in the same direction. Portals turn up on about half of all the levels, and they're where the real planning starts, because one swipe can now paint two separate parts of the board.

Five ways to get unstuck

1. Find the dead ends. A square with only one way in has to be the end of a slide. Work backwards from those.
2. Look at the corridors. A one-square-wide passage can usually only be painted in one direction. Work out which.
3. Count the moves. If the solution feels long, it probably is. Planning six moves ahead isn't unusual on Pro boards.
4. Use undo. Stepping back out of a mistake is always free, so experiment.
5. Take a hint. You get three hints a day. A hint shows you the next move of a solution from where you are.

Puzzle codes

Every board can be shared as a short code. Paste a friend's code to play their board, or make your own and send it to them.

What's free

The first 100 levels are free, and hints and undo are there for everyone. One optional purchase, the Full Game Pass, unlocks all 1,200 levels and extra ball colours. It can be shared with your family, and there's no subscription.

Read more about PathRight.