ZEN 10 — draw paths that add up to exactly ten

What is ZEN 10 — draw paths that add up to exactly ten

ZEN 10 gives you a five-by-five grid of numbers from one to six and a single instruction: draw a path through touching cells that adds up to exactly ten. All eight directions count, so diagonals are worth as much as straight lines, and a path can be two cells long or ten. Land on ten and the path disappears, paying twenty-five points for every cell it held: fifty for a pair, a hundred and twenty-five for a chain of five. The counter in the top right corner tracks the running total while you drag, and the grid simply refuses any cell that would carry you past ten.

What separates ZEN 10 from most grid puzzles is what happens when you fall short. Release a path summing to less than ten and the cells do not return: they collapse into the last cell you touched, which becomes their sum, you collect only that sum, and one random block on the board climbs by one. Falling short is therefore worse than not having played at all, which is the rule the whole game turns on. Survivors drop down their columns, fresh numbers from one to six enter at the top, and the run ends when no two touching cells add up to ten or less.

How to play

1. Press a cell and drag through its neighbours, diagonals included, to build a path; the badge in the top right corner shows the running total as you go.
2. Release on exactly ten and the whole path vanishes, paying twenty-five points per cell: fifty for two cells, a hundred and twenty-five for five.
3. Release below ten and the path merges into the last cell you touched, you score only that small sum, and one block somewhere on the board climbs.
4. Cleared cells fall, new numbers from one to six drop in from the top, and the game ends when no two touching cells add up to ten or less.

Strategies that work

• Do the arithmetic before you release. The cheapest exact ten, a two-cell pair, pays fifty points; the most generous failure, a merge summing nine, pays nine and still raises a block somewhere. Falling short is not a small win but a double loss, so patience costs you nothing.
• Payment is twenty-five per cell, not per move, so a five-cell ten pays a hundred and twenty-five while two separate pairs pay a hundred and clear one cell fewer. Long chains of ones and twos score efficiently and drain the small numbers, but read the next tip first.
• Nothing above six ever falls from the top: every seven, eight and nine on your board came from a merge or the penalty that follows one. They are nearly unusable, since a nine reaches ten only with a single one and an eight needs a two. Ration your ones.
• A failed merge deposits its sum in the last cell you touched, and you choose that cell. End a forced merge in a corner, which touches only three cells, rather than the middle, which touches eight: a high number blocks far fewer paths there. Keep ones and twos central.
• You can always back out. Dragging back onto the previous cell drops the last one from the path, and releasing with a single cell selected costs nothing at all. Since the grid refuses any cell that would take you past ten, explore a route freely and unwind it if needed.

A little history

ZEN 10 was written for Puzzle-Me and belongs to the family of grid puzzles solved by adding numbers away rather than matching colours, the same territory as Number Match or Sumplete. Ten is the natural target, since pairs that make ten are among the first sums anyone learns. What belongs to this game alone is the penalty: in most puzzles of the family a wrong attempt is simply refused, so trying costs nothing. Here a path that stops short is accepted, merged and answered with a block that climbs, turning a search for sums into the management of a board that only gets heavier.

Frequently asked questions