Schulte Table

The board, and how you win

A Schulte table is a square grid with the numbers shuffled into it. Here the grid is 3×3, 4×4 or 5×5, and it holds every number from 1 up to the number of cells exactly once — 9, 16 or 25 of them, with no cell left empty and nothing repeated.

You win by tapping every cell, in the order that round asks for. There is no game over. No board can be lost or spoiled; every one of them can be finished, and the only open question is how long it takes you.

• The cells carry digits and nothing else — no pictures, no symbols. Digits look the same in every language the app ships in, and text baked into a picture cannot be translated.
• The numbers are drawn in one ink colour. Colour never carries meaning here. Marking the next number in a different colour would do the searching for you, and it would hand a different game to a player who does not see the difference.
• A cell you have tapped sinks and dims, and its number stays where it was. Taking tapped numbers away would leave the grid full of holes, and the rest of the round would get easier for a reason that has nothing to do with you.
• A tapped cell is told apart by its faded number and its sunken surface together, never by colour alone. With Reduce motion on, it changes over instantly instead of easing.
• A screen reader reads each cell as its number, its row, its column, and whether it has already been tapped. The number you are looking for is read out too, so it is never a cue you can only see.

There is nothing above 5×5. At that size a tap target is already close to as small as it should get on a phone, so a bigger grid was not added — and the board is drawn as wide as the space allows, to keep those 25 cells comfortable to hit.

Tapping, and what a wrong tap does

The number you are looking for is shown above the grid, one at a time and large, under the label "Find". You are never asked to keep the sequence in your head: what this game asks is where the number is, not what comes next.

Tap the cell holding that number and it goes down. Tap a different number and nothing happens at all — no sound, no vibration, and the board does not move. The tap is counted as a wrong tap, and that is the whole of the consequence.

• A correct tap sinks the cell, and the number above the grid moves on to the next one.
• A wrong tap is silent on purpose. If missing made a noise, you would learn to stop tapping until you were certain — and looking, then tapping, is the whole round.
• Tapping a cell you have already tapped does nothing, and it is not counted as a wrong tap. You did not get the number wrong; you pressed something you had already pressed.
• The top bar shows the level you are on, or the Daily, and how many cells you have tapped so far. It counts what you have done; it does not count down.

No clock runs on the screen, and neither does the wrong-tap count. Your time and your wrong taps for that round appear when you finish, and your statistics keep the fastest time and the wrong taps as a running total. A round takes tens of seconds, and a counter ticking through one would only be there to hurry it.

The three tap orders

Each round is tapped in one of three orders. The order is fixed for the whole round, and it is the only thing that varies: the numbers are shuffled into the grid the same way whichever order is in force.

• Every order uses the whole board — all 9, 16 or 25 numbers, each of them once. No order skips a number or ends early.
• The layout does not depend on the order. The same board tapped descending has its numbers in exactly the same places; only the sequence you are asked for changes.
• Odd then even turns over in the middle. On a 5×5 the odd run ends at 25, and the even run then starts again at 2. The searching picks up a second question along the way: is the next one odd or even?
• The two-colour version of this puzzle — two series of numbers told apart by colour and chased alternately — is not here. Colour would be the only thing separating the series, which breaks the rule above and would hand a different game to a player with a colour vision deficiency.

The 100 levels and the Daily Challenge

Levels run 1–100 and unlock in order. A level’s size, its order and its layout all come from its number alone, so the board is built on your device from a seed and level 63 is the same level 63 for everyone.

• A new board size always starts on ascending. Stepping the grid up and changing the order at the same time would be two jumps landing at once, so the bands never do both.
• Any level you have unlocked can be played again, and a replay is the same layout. A finished level shows your fastest clear on it — that is the record a replay is measured against.
• The Daily Challenge is one board a day: always 5×5, always tapped 1 up to 25. No day of the week is harder than another.
• The last 30 days are listed and every one of them is open. You never have to finish one day to reach the day before it — every daily is the same size and the same order, so there is no difficulty to ration and a gate there would be an obstacle with nothing behind it.
• A day you finish is recorded with the time it took. No streak is counted or shown anywhere, so skipping a day costs you nothing.

Statistics are kept per board size — games played, games cleared, fastest clear, total play time, and your wrong taps added up. Levels finished, dailies finished and the level you have reached sit alongside them. There is no score of any kind: nothing here is turned into points, a rank or a rating.

Why there is no Undo or Hint

Most of this collection gives you both, unlimited and free. This game has neither, and that is a decision rather than an omission — it follows from what a round is actually made of.

• Undo would have nothing to take back. A tap is you saying you found the number. Nothing on the board is hidden and the sequence is fixed, so there is no choice you could have made differently and no earlier position for an Undo to return you to.
• Hint would be the game. Every number is already in front of you. Pointing at the next one is not help with the searching; it is the searching.
• That is the same reason every number is the same colour. Tinting the next one would be a hint wearing a different hat.
• The help you get instead is a retry of the same board, instant and free. One tap on the finish screen — the button says Retry same board — rebuilds the identical layout, so the grid you have just read is the grid you get. It is never rationed, and no game feature here is ever behind an ad or a purchase.
• You can also start the round over from the top bar while you are playing. The app asks first, and then the round begins again from the first number.

A round in progress is never saved. Leave the screen and it is gone: a round is tens of seconds of unbroken attention, and a half-tapped grid handed back an hour later is neither a game nor a record. Starting one counts in games played and finishing it counts in games cleared — and the time and the wrong taps you spent are kept either way.

Getting faster

Time is the only record this game keeps, so getting faster is about removing hesitation rather than tapping harder. A wrong tap is never a record, and it costs you nothing beyond the moment it took.

• You never have to plan ahead. The next number appears the instant you tap, so a round is one search repeated: read it, find it, tap, read the next.
• Tapped numbers fade but stay where they were, so the board never develops holes. The numbers you have already found go on working as landmarks for the ones you have not.
• Because a wrong tap is silent and costs nothing, checking a cell you are not quite sure about is cheaper than freezing in front of it.
• Descending is introduced on a small board on purpose. Levels 16–20 are 3×3, so the first time the order reverses there are only 9 numbers to meet it on; the 4×4 and 5×5 boards each get their own descending band later.
• On odd then even, expect the turn. Once the last odd number is gone the second half is an ascending run again — 2, 4, 6 and on — across a 5×5 board where 13 of the 25 cells are already faded.
• If a round went badly, retry it straight away. The layout is identical, so a second pass over a grid you have already read is where the time comes down. Unlocked levels can be replayed the same way, against their own fastest clear.

Questions people ask