Daily Brains · wire every pair, cross only on bridges, power up the board.
Crosswired is the circuit-board puzzle in Daily Brains (/daily). Each day sets one board of coloured terminals; drag a wire between each matching pair through neighbouring squares. Wires may not share a square, except on bridge tiles where one wire runs straight across and another straight down. The board shows nothing else: no row or column counts, just the terminals and the bridges. Close a circuit and a spark runs down the wire; close them all and the whole board powers up.
STORY & LORE
The weekly ramp
Monday is a gentle 5×5 with four pairs and free wiring (empty squares allowed). Tuesday is a 6×6 with five pairs. From Wednesday every square must carry a wire. Thursday adds a bridge, Friday two, Saturday is a 9×9 with two bridges, and Sunday is a fiendish 10×10 with three bridges and eight or nine long, winding wires.
One answer
Boards are built by covering the grid with non-overlapping wires (random merges, with a rule that no wire may run alongside itself), then placing terminals at the wire ends. From Thursday to Sunday a frontier solver counts every possible wiring and the board is only used if exactly one exists. Monday to Wednesday are guaranteed solvable (they are built from a real wiring) but may have more than one answer; any wiring that follows the rules wins.
Same board for everyone
The board is generated in the page from the puzzle number, so every player gets the same one on the same day. A small table of seeds, checked offline, means the page never has to run the uniqueness solver for the next two years of puzzles.
HOW IT PLAYS
Drawing
Press a terminal and drag to lay its wire; drag back over the wire to retract it. Press any square of an existing wire to pick it up from that point. Dragging over another wire cuts it, and backing off heals the cut. On a bridge a wire must go straight through; each bridge has one lane across and one lane down. Keyboard: arrows move the cursor, Space grabs and drops, Z undoes, H gives a hint.
Powering up
The board powers up when every pair is joined and, on fill days, no square is dark (each bridge needs both lanes used). The status line counts live circuits and dark squares.
Scoring
Powering up pays 600. Speed adds up to 300: the full bonus at half the day's par time, fading to nothing at twice par (par runs from 0:45 on Monday to 7:00 on Sunday). No hints adds 100; each hint lays one correct wire and costs 100 (the score never drops below 100). Maximum 1,000. Giving up reveals the wiring and ends the day as a blackout.
Sharing
The share card shows the board size and time, then a plug, one coloured circle per circuit in the order you closed them, and a lit bulb. It never shows the board itself.
WEEKLY DIFFICULTY
| Day | Label | Board | Pairs | Bridges | Fill | Unique | Par |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Gentle | 5×5 | 4 | 0 | No | No | 0:45 |
| Tuesday | Easy | 6×6 | 5 | 0 | No | No | 1:00 |
| Wednesday | Steady | 7×7 | 6 | 0 | Yes | Usually | 1:40 |
| Thursday | Tricky | 8×8 | 6–7 | 1 | Yes | Yes | 2:40 |
| Friday | Tough | 8×8 | 6–7 | 2 | Yes | Yes | 3:40 |
| Saturday | Wicked | 9×9 | 7–8 | 2 | Yes | Yes | 5:00 |
| Sunday | Fiendish | 10×10 | 8–9 | 3 | Yes | Yes | 7:00 |
REWARDS
| Event | Reward |
|---|---|
| Power up the board | 15 Tickets |
| Power up with no hints (perfect) | +25 Tickets |
| First Spark (first board) | ⚡ Bronze · 10 Tickets |
| Clean Circuit (no hints) | 💡 Silver · 20 Tickets |
| Live Wire (3-day streak) | 🔌 Bronze · 15 Tickets |
| Week on the Grid (7-day streak) | 🔋 Gold · 40 Tickets |
| Master Electrician (30-day streak) | 👑 Legendary · 100 Tickets |
VERSION HISTORY
- Launch version in Daily Brains.
- Weekday ramp from a 5×5 free board on Monday to a 10×10 full-fill with three bridges on Sunday.
- Solver-verified unique boards Thursday to Sunday; no row or column counts on screen.
- Drag drawing with cut-and-heal, sparks on each closed circuit, power-up finale, hints, give up, streaks and share card.