Free printable Bridges with answers
A bridges puzzle, also called Hashiwokakero, is a board of numbered islands you join with bridges running along the rows and columns. Each island must hold exactly its number of bridge ends, no two bridges may cross, at most two may join the same pair, and every island has to end up in one single connected network. There is nothing to add up and nothing to shade: you draw lines, and the rule that none of them may cross is what gives the puzzle its shape.
By size
More islands is what makes a board harder, not a bigger grid. A wide board with few islands gives the numbers almost nothing to choose between, so each grade adds islands and grows the board to fit them.
Easy bridges puzzles
Free printable easy bridges puzzles with answers. Eight islands on a small board, with enough forced moves to open it straight away. Print with the answer. No sign-up.
Medium bridges puzzles
Free printable medium bridges puzzles with answers. Twelve islands on a nine by nine board, still solvable without ever guessing.
Hard bridges puzzles
Free printable hard bridges puzzles with answers. Eighteen islands, where the rule about one connected network does most of the work.
Expert bridges puzzles
Free printable expert bridges puzzles with answers. Twenty-five islands, about three times the deduction of an easy board.
Evil bridges puzzles
Free printable evil bridges puzzles with answers. The biggest board we print, with twenty-eight islands. Still exactly one network.
By audience
It has numbers on it and no arithmetic in it, and the answer is drawn rather than filled in, which makes it an easy puzzle to hand to someone who has bounced off sudoku.
Bridges puzzles for beginners
Free printable bridges puzzles for beginners with answers. Learn the two opening moves on a small board, with the answer on page two.
Bridges, a logic puzzle with no arithmetic
Free printable logic puzzles with no sums in them. The numbers count bridges; nothing is ever added up.
Large print bridges puzzles
Free printable large print bridges puzzles with answers. A small board printed big, with single and double bridges easy to tell apart. No sign-up.
One network, every time
This is the guarantee that takes real work here. The first network on a board is a spanning tree, which always pins itself. But a board whose answer is always a tree would tell you that no loop can ever close, and that is half a solve for free. So every bridge beyond that tree is added one at a time and kept only while a solver still proves the board joins up exactly one way. Adding them any other way makes most boards ambiguous: a cycle gives the numbers somewhere else to be satisfied. Every puzzle here is checked by the same solver our Publisher Studio uses. The answer prints at the back.
How to solve a bridges puzzle
Join the numbered islands with bridges running along the rows and columns, so that each island holds exactly its number of bridge ends, no two bridges cross, at most two join any pair, and every island ends up in one connected network.
The method
- 1Start with the islands that have no choice. Count an island’s neighbours and work out the most bridges it could possibly take: two to each. An island marked 4 with only two neighbours must send two each way. A 6 with three neighbours is the same. Those are free, and they usually open a corner.
- 2Use the almost-full islands next. An island marked 3 with two neighbours must send at least one bridge each way, because two to one side would leave three for the other and three is not allowed. The same reasoning gives a 5 with three neighbours one bridge in every direction. You are not placing the whole number, just the part of it that cannot go anywhere else.
- 3Watch what each bridge rules out. Every bridge you draw blocks the line it crosses, so a bridge between two islands can make a crossing bridge impossible and force its island to look elsewhere. That is usually where the next deduction comes from rather than from the numbers themselves.
- 4Never close off a group. If a handful of islands have all their numbers satisfied and no bridge joins them to the rest, the whole arrangement is wrong, because every island has to end up in one network. Checking for that as you go saves you from a board that looks finished and is not.
- The one rule people get wrong
- Bridges never cross, and they never pass over an island either. A line from one island to another two places away is only legal if nothing at all sits between them.
- What the answer page shows
- The same islands with every bridge drawn in, single or double, so you can check a pair at a glance.
- How the grades differ
- More islands, on a bigger board to fit them. The island count is what makes a board hard: a wide board with few islands gives the numbers almost nothing to choose between.
- Is it the same as a nonogram?
- No, though both work from numbers at the edge of a shape. A nonogram has you shade squares from run lengths; here you draw lines between places, and the rule that no two cross is what gives the puzzle its character.
- Good for
- Anyone who likes a puzzle that is drawn rather than filled in.
Make one now
Pick a board, then print the puzzle and its answer. No sign-up, no watermark.