Spatial puzzle · Order the tilesSliding puzzle,
Sliding puzzle,
fifteen in order.
Fifteen tiles. One missing square. One correct order.
- Moves
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1
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3
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8
About the gameHow sliding puzzle works,
How sliding puzzle works,
in short.
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Fifteen tiles, one gap.
Tiles 1–15 sit shuffled inside a 4×4 frame, with a single empty square to make moves possible.
- Step 02123456789101113141512
Slide adjacent tiles.
Click or tap any tile in the row or column of the gap to slide it. No diagonals.
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Sort 1 to 15.
Order tiles left-to-right, top-to-bottom, with the gap in the bottom-right corner.
Questions
Sliding Puzzle questions, answered.
The sliding puzzle (sometimes called the 15-puzzle or n-puzzle) is a classic brain teaser. Numbered tiles sit on a grid with one empty square, and you slide tiles into the empty space until they end up in numerical order — left to right, top to bottom — with the empty space in the bottom-right corner.
Click or tap any tile adjacent to the empty square and it will slide into that space. Keep sliding until every tile is in its target position. There's no time pressure and no failure state — only the satisfaction of solving it.
Open Settings to pick your board size: 3x3 (the 8-puzzle), 4x4 (the classic 15-puzzle), 5x5, or 6x6. Bigger grids have many more states and require more careful planning, especially toward the end of the solve. You can switch size at any time — it deals a fresh, solved board in the new size, ready to shuffle.
Yes. Open Settings, switch the tile face from Numbers to Picture, and choose any photo from your device — it's sliced into tiles, with the bottom-right corner left out as the gap you slide into. Your image is read and rendered entirely in your browser; it's never uploaded anywhere. Use Change picture to swap in a different photo, or switch back to Numbers at any time. Without numerals to guide you, picture mode plays a little harder.
Solve top-to-bottom and left-to-right. Place the first row, then the leftmost column, then move to the next sub-grid and repeat. For each row or column, place all tiles except the final two at once — those need a special rotation move to drop in without disturbing finished rows.
Don't try to slide them in directly. Park the second-to-last tile in the rightmost column one row below its target, then place the last tile of the row directly above it. Now rotate the 2x2 block to swing both tiles into place at once.
Yes — exactly half of all random tile arrangements are unsolvable. This game generates only solvable boards by shuffling from the solved state, so every puzzle you start can be solved.
Every solvable position has an optimal solution length called "God's number" for that board. For the 15-puzzle, the worst-case optimum is 80 moves. Beating your own move count from the previous game is a great personal challenge.
Yes. Tap a tile to slide it. The board scales to your screen, and tiles are sized for comfortable touch input.
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