Needle: a threading and crossing puzzle

Needle is a quiet puzzle about sewing. Pairs of coloured pins sit on a dark cloth, and your job is to join each pair with its thread. That much is familiar. What is not is the second rule: threads are meant to cross. Most puzzles of this shape forbid it and ask you to keep every line apart. Needle asks the opposite. A thread that runs from its pin to its twin without meeting anything is lying loose on the surface, and you can see it float: the colour drains out of it and its shadow falls further away. To be sewn in, a thread has to pass across the others. There is a button for each colour too, and its thread has to run through it. So a route is rarely the short way round.

How to play

Drag from any pin to lay its thread across to its twin. Drag from it again to lay the same thread somewhere else. The cloth redraws as you go, so you always see which threads are sewn in and which are still floating.

• Join the pairs: every colour has two pins. Drag from one to the other, along whatever route you like.
• Cross the others: each thread must cross at least two of the rest. On the first two levels one is enough, which is there to teach the idea before it starts to bite.
• Sew through the button: each colour has one button, and its own thread has to pass through it. This is what stops the direct route being the answer.
• Crossings are free, corners are not: a cell can carry one thread going across and one going down, which is exactly what a crossing is. A thread that turns in a cell takes the whole cell, so you cannot weave through a corner.
• Stuck? Hint lays one thread exactly where it belongs, choosing whichever is most in the way. Undo steps back one move, and Restart clears the cloth.

Your progress saves automatically, so you always come back to the level where you left off.

Why it is clever

Almost every puzzle built on connecting pairs is really a puzzle about avoidance: keep the lines apart, do not touch, do not cross. Needle inverts that in one move, and the whole feel of it changes. Space stops being something to protect and becomes something to spend. A route that looks wasteful — the long way round, doubling back through the middle of the board — is often the only one that works, because it is the only one that meets enough of the others.

What makes it hold together is that the two rules pull in opposite directions. The button drags a thread toward one particular square. The crossing rule drags it out into the traffic. Satisfying either alone is easy; the puzzle is the route that does both without stranding some other colour on its own.

Tips

• Lay the awkward threads first. The ones whose pins sit close together are the hardest to cross anything, so give them the open cloth while it is still open.
• If a thread is floating, it does not need to be prettier, it needs to go somewhere busier. Take it through the middle rather than round the edge.
• A thread that has to reach its button has already committed to a detour. Look at what it passes on the way and let it earn a crossing while it is there.
• Two threads running side by side are wasted. Parallel lines never cross, so one of them should turn.
• When the cloth is nearly full, the last thread has the fewest routes. Leave it the colour with the most room, not the least.

Frequently asked questions

Is Needle free? Yes, completely free to play, with no account and no download, in any modern browser on phone, tablet or desktop.

Does it work on mobile? Yes. Needle is built for touch as well as mouse, with a taller cloth on a phone and the controls kept within reach of a thumb.

How do I win? Every pair joined, every thread through its own button, and every thread crossing enough of the others to be sewn in.

Why does it say a thread is loose when I have joined it? Joining is only half of it. A thread that crosses nothing is lying on top of the cloth rather than sewn into it. The line under the board names the thread and says how many more crossings it needs.

Is every level solvable? Yes. Each cloth is built around a working answer, and that answer is re-checked before the level is served to you. Hint will lay it one thread at a time if you want to see it.

Stuck? Read the Needle strategy guide →

Enjoy a good thinking puzzle? Try Bloom or Fold, or browse all Zamborin games.