What Is Puzzle Picnic? Six Calm Logic Puzzles in One App

Puzzle Picnic is a calm, cheerful puzzle app with six logic puzzles in one place: Sudoku, Bridges (Hashi), Ships (Battleship solitaire), Lines (an arrow puzzle), Stars (Star Battle) and Trail (a one-line path puzzle). Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can be solved by logic alone. It runs on Android and in a web browser, with the iPhone app in App Store review. It works offline, needs no account, and is free with ads that never interrupt a puzzle.

This guide is the full tour, for anyone deciding whether to try it or wondering what a part of the app does, including an honest look at the ads and Premium.

Puzzle Picnic at a glance

Puzzle Picnic is made by Maestro Software Development B.V., a one-person studio in the Netherlands; the maker signs as Martijn. The app is in English and Dutch, and it is written for adults who enjoy a quiet logic puzzle, from complete beginners to people who solve Expert grids.

The web version plays in the browser with no download and no sign-in, which makes it the quickest way to see whether you like it.

The six games

Puzzle Picnic's six games are all pen-and-paper style logic puzzles: you get a grid and a few rules, and every step can be worked out.

Sudoku

Sudoku in Puzzle Picnic asks you to fill the grid so every row, column and box holds each digit exactly once. You tap a cell and pick a number, and Notes mode lets you pencil in candidates. Easy and Medium use a small 6x6 grid with digits 1 to 6 in boxes of 2x3, which makes sudoku friendly for first-timers; Hard and Expert are the classic 9x9. The puzzle was first published in 1979 by Dell Magazines as Number Place, and reached a wide British audience after The Times began printing it in November 2004 (Wikipedia: Sudoku; Wikipedia: Wayne Gould). Rules, strategies and history are in the sudoku posts.

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Bridges (Hashi)

Bridges asks you to join the islands with straight bridges. The number on each island says how many bridges touch it. Bridges run horizontally or vertically, never cross, at most two join the same pair of islands, and every island must end up connected in one group. You tap an island, then a neighbour, to build a bridge, and tap again for a double. The puzzle is the Japanese Hashiwokakero, whose rules Nikoli sets out the same way (Nikoli: Hashiwokakero). More in the Bridges posts.

Ships (Battleship solitaire)

Ships asks you to find a hidden fleet. The numbers beside each row and column say how many ship squares are in that line, and ships never touch, not even diagonally. You tap a square to cycle between water and ship, or drag to paint several at once. A fleet legend shows every ship you still need to place, and on easier levels a few squares are revealed to start. It is the one-player logic version of the guessing game, with no luck involved. More in the Ships posts.

Lines (arrow puzzle)

Lines gives you a shape filled with lines, each with an arrow. Tap a line and it slides out of the shape, head first, the way its arrow points. A line can only leave when nothing stands in front of its arrow all the way to the edge; tapping a blocked line counts as a mistake. The goal is to clear the shape, and the puzzle is really about order: which line has to go before which. A hint shows a line that can go now. More in the Lines posts.

Stars (Star Battle)

Stars asks you to place one star in every row, every column and every coloured region, and stars never touch, not even at a corner. Tap once to mark a square as empty, twice for a star, or drag to mark several. Two stars that break a rule turn red and count as a mistake. Star Battle was created by the Dutch puzzle maker Hans Eendebak for the 2003 World Puzzle Championship in Arnhem (Grandmaster Puzzles), and the one-star version has the same rules as LinkedIn's Queens. More in the Stars posts.

Trail (one-line path)

Trail asks you to draw one line from 1 through every square, ending on the highest number. The line passes the numbers in order, moves up, down, left or right, never crosses itself and cannot pass through thick walls. You drag to draw, drag back to undo steps, or tap a square on the line to cut it there. It belongs to the same family as other numbered path puzzles, such as LinkedIn's Zip (Grandmaster Puzzles: Introducing Zip). More in the Trail posts.

Which game to try first

The best first game depends on what you already enjoy. All six start at an Easy level with a small grid, so none is a bad choice, but some click faster for certain people.

If you are new to logic puzzles in general, the best logic puzzles for beginners ranks these and other well-known puzzles by learning curve.

Four levels and one solution: how the puzzles are made fair

Every game in Puzzle Picnic has four levels, Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert, and every puzzle at every level has exactly one solution that logic gets you to. You never have to guess.

What changes at each level

The levels change the size of the grid and the techniques you need.

Some levels also change the kind of thinking you need. Easy and Medium sudoku can be solved with singles alone, while Hard and Expert need harder techniques, up to pairs, X-Wing or chains. In Stars, Expert puzzles need you to reason about groups of regions together, and Hard ones may. In Ships, Easy reveals a few squares to start you off and Expert usually reveals none. In Lines, the lines get longer and more tangled as the shape grows.

Fair by construction

Puzzle Picnic makes its puzzles itself, from a seed. The same game, seed and difficulty always give the same puzzle, which is how everyone gets the same daily puzzle and how a shared link opens exactly the same grid. A solver checks every puzzle before you see it: it must have exactly one solution, and its difficulty depends on which solving techniques it needs. The full story is in how a puzzle is made from a seed.

That has a practical upside for you. When you are stuck, there is always a next logical step, and a hint can show you what it is. If a move seems to need a guess, it is a sign you have missed something, not that the puzzle is unfair.

The daily puzzle, streaks and hints

Puzzle Picnic has one new daily puzzle every day, the same for everyone. For anyone with a daily puzzle habit, this is the centre of the app: one shared grid a day, to solve whenever suits you and compare with friends.

The daily puzzle and the archive

The daily rotates through the six games, Sudoku, Bridges, Ships, Lines, Stars and Trail, then round again, and it is always at Medium. So each day brings a different kind of puzzle, and over a week you meet all six. With Premium, the daily archive lets you replay past dailies, so a missed day can still be caught up: you go back and solve the puzzle everyone else did.

Streaks and streak freezes

Solving the daily keeps a streak going. A streak can be motivating, but a single busy day should not undo weeks of solving, so Puzzle Picnic has streak freezes: a freeze forgives one missed day. You start with one, earn another every seven days, and can hold two at a time. For more on keeping a streak without letting it run you, see the habits posts.

Hints and power-ups

Puzzle Picnic gives you three free hints a day, and a hint explains the next logical step instead of just filling in a square. That makes a hint a small lesson: you see why the move works, so you can spot the same pattern yourself next time.

Each game's power-up tray has four slots: the hint, plus a reveal, a fix and a sweep, drawn and named in each game's own style. The reveal, fix and sweep come from one shared stock for all six games that refills a little every day. Any solve that used a hint or power-up is marked as assisted rather than clean, which keeps your records honest and keeps challenges fair.

Playing with friends

Puzzle Picnic is built for playing with friends who are not free at the same time as you: you each solve the same puzzle separately, then compare.

There are three ways to share a puzzle:

• Challenge a friend. After solving, share a link to the exact same puzzle with your time attached. Your friend plays it whenever they like and tries to beat it. Nobody needs to sign up.
• A short code. Any puzzle can also be shared as a seven-character code such as K7Q2MXR, which is handy to type into a chat or read out loud. The share screen shows a QR code too.
• Friends in the account. With the optional account you can add friends and see their daily times.

If you used power-ups, the challenge says so, so your friend knows what they are racing. Practical ideas for running a puzzle club in a group chat or across a family are in puzzles with friends when you can't play at the same time.

My picnic and achievements

Solving puzzles in Puzzle Picnic also builds a sticker collection, called My picnic. Every solve fills a points meter, with more points for harder levels, a clean solve and the daily. A full meter gives you a sticker pack of three stickers, or four with Premium.

Stickers are common, rare or shiny. They fill an album of collections that open as your player level rises: Fruit Basket, Bakery, Lemonade Stand, Garden Critters, Meadow and Summer Sky, plus two Premium collections, Picnic Gear and Picnic Pals. Duplicates turn into sparkles, and sparkles buy a sticker you are missing. You can arrange the stickers you find on your own picnic blanket.

Two things keep the stickers in their place. Packs are opened between puzzles, never during one, and stickers never change a puzzle: they are a reward around the solving, not part of it. Collecting is meant to take months. The details are in how My picnic works.

Puzzle Picnic also has 37 achievements, which are on Game Center and Google Play Games too.

Offline first, the optional account and comfort settings

Puzzle Picnic is offline first: everything works without a connection, on a plane, on the underground or anywhere the signal drops. Your progress is stored on your device.

The optional account

You never need an account. Without one, your progress stays on your device. The optional account exists only to back up and sync your progress between devices, and to make the friends list possible. You can sign up with email and password, or with Apple or Google sign-in in the apps.

Comfort settings

Puzzle Picnic is designed to be calm to use:

• Theme: light, dark or follow the system.
• Reduced motion: a setting to tone down animation.
• Haptics: optional, on or off.
• No timer pressure: your time is recorded, but nothing runs out and nothing counts down.

The lack of a countdown matters. You can stop halfway through a puzzle to make tea and come back to it with nothing lost.

Ads and Premium, honestly

Puzzle Picnic is free with ads, and Premium removes them.

Ads for free players

No ad interrupts a puzzle. In the iPhone and Android apps, free players see an occasional break between two puzzles, after the result screen, and can choose to watch optional reward videos, for example for one more hint. The ads are not personalised. The web version shows no ads. Breaks are spaced out so that most solves have none, and they are skipped after the daily puzzle. The full detail of how breaks and videos are paced is in ads without interrupting a puzzle.

Premium

Premium is one optional, one-time purchase. There is no subscription and nothing renews. It includes:

• No ads.
• Unlimited hints and power-ups.
• Bigger sticker packs and the two Premium sticker collections.
• The daily archive of past daily puzzles.
• Extra colour themes: Moss, Plum and Ember.

Premium is bought in the iPhone or Android app; it is not sold on the web. Every game and every level is playable without it.

Frequently asked questions

Is Puzzle Picnic free?

Yes. All six games, all four levels and the daily puzzle are free to play, with ads between puzzles in the apps (never during one) and no ads on the web. Premium is an optional one-time purchase that removes the ads and adds unlimited hints and power-ups, bigger sticker packs, the daily archive and extra themes.

Does Puzzle Picnic work offline?

Yes. Everything works without a connection, and no account is needed. The optional account only backs up and syncs your progress when you are online.

Which game should I start with in Puzzle Picnic?

If you already know sudoku, start there: Easy uses a 6x6 grid, which is quick to learn. If you want something new, Stars and Bridges have short rules and small Easy grids. Every game teaches its rules in the app, and Easy is always the gentlest way in.

Is Puzzle Picnic on iPhone?

The iPhone app is in App Store review. Android is live on Google Play, and the web version at puzzlepicnic.app plays in any browser right now, with no account.

Who makes Puzzle Picnic?

Maestro Software Development B.V., a one-person studio in the Netherlands. The maker signs as Martijn.

Where to start

The easiest way to try Puzzle Picnic is a short first week, with no account and no download. Here is one way to spend it:

1. Day 1. Open puzzlepicnic.app in your browser, pick the game whose rules sound most fun, and solve one Easy puzzle. Read the rules the app shows you before you start.
2. Day 2. Play the daily puzzle, whichever game it is today. It is the same for everyone, so it is the one to talk about.
3. Day 3. Try a second game at Easy. If the first was a number puzzle, pick a drawing one, such as Trail or Bridges, for contrast.
4. Day 4. Send a puzzle you enjoyed to a friend as a challenge, with your time to beat.
5. Days 5 to 7. Keep playing the daily, which brings a new game each day, and move your favourite game up to Medium once Easy feels routine.

By the end of the week you will know which games you return to. If you play on your phone, install the Android app or, once it is out of review, the iPhone app, and add the optional account if you want your progress backed up. The rules and strategy posts for each game are there when you want to go deeper.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Sudoku
• Wikipedia: Wayne Gould
• Nikoli: Hashiwokakero
• Grandmaster Puzzles: Star Battle rules and info
• Grandmaster Puzzles: Introducing Zip