Here are some free memory puzzles to play in your browser without downloading anything. Choose from logic puzzles, number grids, word ladders, paths and floor plans. The twist is that the clues in some puzzles show for a few seconds and then hide, so you have to use your memory. Below the games are guides to solving logic puzzles.
Showing all 11 puzzles
Press START to deal a puzzle.
Featured puzzle · Working memory
Fill a 4 by 4, 6 by 6 or 9 by 9 number grid from memory: the starting numbers show for a few seconds, then hide.
Try the mini here. Six numbers show for 12 seconds once you press START, then turn into dots. Fill the grid so every row, column and 2 by 2 box holds 1 to 4 once. Tap a cell, then a number, or type 1 to 4.
Level: Hard, on every grid size
Place one crown in every row, column and coloured region, then keep going once the colours fade.
Draw one line through every square, calling at the numbered waypoints in order after the numbers hide.
Balance full and new moons on a 6 by 6 grid, from signs that show for a few seconds, then fade.
Climb a word ladder one letter at a time, from clues that show for a few seconds, then fade.
Divide a floor into rectangular rooms. Every clue is a small sum, and its answer is the room's size.
Make the target number from a handful of tiles with + − × ÷, while every result you make turns face down.
A daily five-letter word to find in six guesses, where each guess's colours fade after three seconds, so you play from memory.
A plant puzzle: find the hidden flower family from its petals, symmetry, leaves, ovary and fruit.
Work out who is in which room, and with what, from a list of clues, with ticks and crosses on a grid.
Shade a hidden picture so every row and column matches its number clue.
Solving guides
Every kind of logic puzzle has a few moves that do most of the work. Here is the key technique for nine of them, each with a picture, a way to keep the board in your head once the clues hide, and a game above to practice on.
Technique demo · a Memodoku Mini board
Step 1 of 10
The only cell left in a row
Row 4 needs a 3. C4 cannot take it, because column C already has a 3 on C3, and B4 and D4 are filled. That leaves A4, even though a 4 would also fit there.
01 · Memodoku
Key technique
Pick a row and a number it still needs, then rule out every empty cell that already sees that number in its column or box. When only one cell is left, the number goes there, even if that cell could hold others too. Do the same for columns and boxes, and most of a small grid fills itself in.
Memory angle
Read the givens one number at a time, “the 3s sit on D1, B2 and C3”, instead of cell by cell. That is the question every move here asks, so it is the easiest way to keep them once they hide.
02 · Crowns
Key technique
Any two cells of a 2 by 2 block touch, side by side or at a corner, so one block can never hold two crowns. When a whole region is just three cells bent into an L, its crown lands on one of them, and the fourth cell of that block touches all three. Cross the fourth cell out at once, whichever cell the region’s crown ends up on.
Memory angle
Before the colors fade, turn each region into a picture (an L is a boot, a long bar is a bridge) and pin it to the letters and numbers on the board’s edge: the boot stands on B2.
03 · Waypoints
Key technique
Every square in the middle of the line needs two neighbors on it, one to come in by and one to leave by. A square left with a single free neighbor, like the corner A5 here, can only be where the line finishes. The last waypoint is on E1, not A5, so the turn at A4 was wrong, and the line has to drop into the corner first.
Memory angle
Walk the waypoints as a short journey before they hide, and give each number a picture that looks like it, a swan for 2 or a sailboat for 4, standing on its square. The number shape system has one for every digit.
04 · Equinox
Key technique
No more than two of the same moon may sit side by side, so a pair of full moons needs a new moon at each end. A single gap between two full moons must be a new moon too. Then count, because once a row has three full moons, every other cell in it is new.
Memory angle
Read the = and × signs as short beats before they fade, “same, differ, same”, and say them once. A few beats are easier to keep than signs scattered across a grid, which is chunking at work.
05 · Rungs
Key technique
Compare the top and bottom words and count the letters that differ. When that count equals the number of steps, every rung turns one of those letters into its final letter, and no letter changes twice. COLD and WARM differ in all four places across four steps, so each rung fixes one letter, and its clue tells you which.
Memory angle
When a clue shows, make it a picture at once and hang it on its rung: “a thin rope” becomes a rope knotted around the first rung, so CORD is waiting there when you come back. The link method works the same way.
06 · Floor Plan
Key technique
Work the clue out, then list every rectangle with that many cells: 4+2 is 6, so the room is a strip of 6 or a 2 by 3 block, standing up or lying down. Rule out each shape that runs off the floor or takes in a second clue. Here the strip is too long for a floor five cells wide, and lying down the block swallows the clue on C2, so it stands up, two wide and three tall.
Memory angle
Know the small sums and the times tables by heart, so 4+2 reads as fast as 6 and your attention stays on the shapes. Then walk the finished plan room by room, like a memory palace, and see how many clues you can still say.
07 · Reckon
Key technique
Find an easy product near the target, then make the gap from the tiles that are left. 94 is close to 90, which is 9 × 10, and the gap of 4 is 8 ÷ 2. Planning from the top down gives every step a job, and here you only ever hold two results in your head.
Memory angle
Give each face-down result a word from the Major System: 90 is a bus, 4 is a ray, and the target, 94, is a bear.
08 · Casebook
Key technique
Turn each clue into marks on the grid, a cross for no and a tick for yes. When a row has only one cell left without a cross, that cell is a yes, and a yes crosses out the rest of its column. Every new mark can unlock another, so after each one, scan its row and column again.
Memory angle
Give each person a room in a small memory palace and leave each fact there as an object, a fishbowl on Ana’s doorstep. Then try a three by three grid with the page closed.
09 · Tilework
Key technique
Push a row’s block as far left as it will go, then as far right, and fill the cells both positions share. A 7 in a row of 10 can start no later than cell 4, so cells 4 to 7 are filled whichever way it sits. Start with the biggest clues, then let each filled cell pin down the column that crosses it.
Memory angle
Carry one small number per row instead of the picture: the slack, which is the row’s length minus its clue. A 7 in a row of 10 has a slack of 3, so every cell after the first 3, up to the 7th, is filled.
Nine habits that work on every puzzle on this page, and on most others.
Members post puzzles on the Art of Memory forum and ask how others would solve them. Here are some of the threads.
Seating plans, box puzzles, exam-style reasoning sets and trick questions where the first answer that comes to mind is wrong.
Number-placement grids, picture grids drawn from number clues, a sliding calendar and a data interpretation caselet.
Letter puzzles, and a mnemonic acronym to crack.
Cain's Jawbone, the 1934 murder mystery printed with its 100 pages out of order, and books on making puzzles and codes.
Members asking for a hand with puzzles they found, and the thread that opened the forum's section for mind puzzles.
Post it in the puzzles section of the forum, and say whether you want hints or the answer.
Post a puzzle on the forumA free account lets you post in the forum's puzzles section and ask how others solved one. It also gets you the free ebook Learn the Art of Memory.
Yes. Every puzzle on this page plays free in your browser, on a phone or a computer, with nothing to install. You do not need an account to play.
In most logic puzzles the clues stay on the page. In most of the games here they show for a few seconds and then hide, so you hold them in your head while you reason. Reckon turns each result face down, and Memordle fades each guess's colors after three seconds. Casebook and Tilework keep their clues on the screen.
They train one skill: holding a few facts in mind while you reason with them, and with practice you get better at it. The habit they build, turning clues into pictures, places and words, is how memory techniques work on lists, numbers and names too.
Rungs or Crowns on Easy are gentle starts. Memodoku is Hard even on its 4 by 4 grid, so try it once the others feel easy, or step through the solving demo first.
Start where the puzzle is most constrained: the row with the most cells filled, the smallest region or the biggest clue. A tight spot has the fewest possibilities, so it gives up the first certain move, and each move you make tightens the spots around it.
Not in the grid puzzles. Each one the games make has exactly one solution, so it can always be finished by reasoning, though the reasoning can get long. Memordle is the exception, since guessing words is the game. If you feel you must guess in a grid, test a cell in pencil and follow it until it breaks a rule. A test that ends in a clash proves the opposite, so it is still logic.
Hold the clues as a few chunks instead of many single facts: numbers by where they sit, regions as pictures, signs as short beats. Crowns letters its columns and numbers its rows, so a cell such as C5 can become a picture on a peg list. Waypoints suits a memory palace, one waypoint per room, and the Major System turns digits into words for the number puzzles. In the grid games your own marks stay when the clues hide, so every certain move turns something you remember into something you can see.
Draw a grid for every pair of categories and turn each clue into crosses and ticks. A tick crosses out the rest of its row and column, and a row with one blank left is a tick. When the grid stops giving, reread the clues that compare things, such as older than or next to, because they often hold a second fact. Casebook lets you practice this, with its clues on the screen the whole time.
Begin with the biggest clues and fill the overlap, the cells a block covers when pushed to either end of its row. Then mark the cells that must stay empty, such as the ones beside a finished block, and switch to the columns. Going back and forth between rows and columns does most of the work. Tilework lets you practice this, with its number clues on the screen the whole time.
Your personal bests stay in this browser. Most games deal a fresh puzzle as soon as you finish, and Memordle has a new word every day.
Every game on the site, puzzles included.
Ten short tests with medals, from the zodiac signs to digits of pi.
Ways to remember the facts that quizzes ask about.
Race other players in real time.
Memory exercises on paper.
