Tap Away Puzzle Tips: How to Clear Every Traffic Jam

In tap away puzzles, the board is packed with cars, animals or blocks, each with an arrow. Tap one and it leaves in that direction, if nothing is in the way. The whole trick is finding the right order. Here is how to read the arrows, find the piece that must go first, handle lines and sliding pieces, and solve their cousins: screw puzzles.

How it works

Every piece on the board has an arrow. When you tap it, it moves in that direction on its own. If the way is clear, it leaves the board. If another piece blocks the path, it bumps into it and goes back to its spot. You win when the board is empty.

In our games, a bump goes BONK and costs a heart. You have 3 hearts, only 2 from level 8, and losing them all restarts the level. A level with no bump earns 3 stars, and one bump still earns 2.

Start with the free pieces

Begin by looking for pieces whose path is already clear. Follow each arrow with your eyes all the way to the edge of the board. If nothing stands in the way, that piece is safe to tap. Pieces near the edge with an arrow pointing outward are often the easiest.

Every piece that leaves opens space, so look again after each tap. A piece that was stuck a moment ago may now be free. Do not tap from memory: one quick check saves a heart.

Follow the chain of blockers

When no piece seems free, or the board is very crowded, pick a stuck piece and ask: what is in its way? Then ask the same question about that blocker. Following this chain leads you to the one piece that must move first.

Pieces in the middle of the board, with their arrow pointing into a crowd, usually go last. Do not waste time on them early. Clear the outside first, and the middle opens up by itself.

Lines that follow and pieces that slide

Some games change how pieces move. In follow-the-leader levels, a head leads a whole line. The head goes straight along its arrow and the rest of the line follows it, through every turn. Until the last one has passed, the line keeps blocking the squares it was sitting on.

In sliding levels, a piece does not fly off the board. It slides until it hits something, like an edge, a rock or another piece, and the goal is to drop every piece into a hole. A piece that has stopped can become a wall that stops the next one exactly where you need it. Some setups lock up if you move the wrong piece first: if nothing can move, restart the level.

Use hints and the crane to learn

In our tap away games, every level gives you coins. The hint costs 30 coins and shows the right piece to tap. The crane costs 90 coins and lifts away the piece that blocks the most. When you use one, watch why that piece was the key, because the same pattern comes back in later levels.

Screw puzzles: the same idea in layers

Screw puzzles, also called nuts and bolts puzzles, belong to the same family: tap to remove pieces in the right order. Panels are screwed on top of each other, and you can only unscrew a free screw. One covered by a panel above it will not move. When a panel has lost all its screws, it falls and frees what was underneath, so clear the top layers first.

Each screw flies to the box of its color, which holds three. A screw with no box of its color waits in a small tray, and if the tray fills up, you lose. Before you tap, check which boxes are open and pick screws that match them. Keep tray spaces free for the moments you have no choice. In our screw games, a hint costs 15 coins: the level restarts and a hand shows each screw to tap.

Try our tap away games

Parking Panic is a jammed parking lot where each car drives straight out along its arrow. In Chick Rush, a mother hen leads her line of chicks, and in Ice Rink, penguins slide across the ice into water holes. For screws, Robo Bolts shows the next robots in line ahead of time, and Pirate Planks adds padlocked pegs that you open with key pegs.