Pull the Pin Puzzle Tips: How to Solve Every Level

Pull the pin puzzles look easy: tap a pin, things fall. But one wrong pin and the lava lands on the treasure. The good news is that every level has a logic you can learn. Here is how to read a level, find the right order, handle dangers and monsters, and use hints without wasting them.

How it works

Each level is a stack of chambers held closed by pins. When you tap a pin, it slides out and whatever it was holding falls: coins, water, lava, poison or anything else the game uses. At the bottom waits the hero, often in a basket, a pot or a bucket. The good stuff must reach the hero, and the bad stuff must never touch the hero or the good stuff.

A pin never goes back in. Once something falls, it keeps going until it lands. That is why the order of the pins is the whole puzzle, not the speed of your fingers.

Read the whole level before you tap

Take a few seconds to look before you touch anything. For each pin, ask two questions: what is it holding, and where will that fall? Follow the path with your eyes. Walls and ramps send things sideways, and an empty chamber below means things will drop further than you think.

Then spot the dangers: the bad stuff, any creature that could eat the good stuff, and any chamber that sits right above the hero with no ramp. Whatever comes out of that chamber drops straight down, so it must hold only good stuff when you open it.

Make the danger harmless first

Most levels follow one rule: deal with the bad stuff before you release the good stuff. Freeing the treasure first feels natural, but it usually ends badly, because the lava or poison still has somewhere to go.

There are a few ways to do it. Water poured on lava cools it into stone, and stone is safe. In some games, soil soaks up poison. In others there is no cure, so you must send the bad stuff into a tank or a side chamber, far from the hero. Look for tilted floors and doors: they are often the way out.

Mixing matters too. Lava burns gold, and poison spreads into clean water and turns it bad. Keep them apart until the danger is gone.

Monsters, bait and locks

Harder levels add a creature that gobbles up the good stuff. Never release the treasure while it is waiting below. Find what makes it leave: in some games it runs away from the bad stuff, in others it walks off happily with a treat, like a dog with a bone. Send it away first.

Watch out for bait: good stuff resting on top of bad stuff, right above the hero. It looks like a gift, but opening it drops the danger too. And when the treasure sits behind two pins, with an empty chamber below it, plan both pulls and check what else will fall on the way down.

Work backwards to find the order

When a level looks hard, start from the end. The last pin you pull is usually the one that drops the good stuff onto the hero. Ask what must be true just before that moment. Is the lava gone? Has the monster left? Each answer gives you a pin that must come earlier.

Avoid lazy patterns. Pulling pins from top to bottom, from bottom to top, or grabbing the treasure first rarely works on hard levels. In our games, from level 4, those obvious orders are built to fail. If you lose, think about which drop caused the problem, fix that one step and try again.

Use hints to learn

A hint is there to teach you, not just to rescue you. Try a couple of times on your own, then use one if you are really stuck, and look closely at why the order works. The same tricks come back in later levels.

In our pin games, the light bulb hint costs 15 coins: it numbers the pins in the right order and a hand points to the next one. You earn 3 stars by winning on your first try, 2 after a few tries, and 1 with the hint.

Try our pull the pin games

Pirate Nugget drops gold coins to a little pirate: water turns lava into stone, and a bit of lava scares the greedy crab away. In Yum Kitty, keep the water off the kibble, drain it into a tank and give the dog a bone. Garden Drop waters a thirsty flower, with soil to soak up poison and a snail to scare off.