Help
Table of contents
Viewing the puzzle
It's easy to get lost among the thousands of puzzles available on our site. To help you find the most interesting and popular puzzles more quickly, we've prepared several different views. Choose the one that helps you find the puzzles you're interested in as quickly as possible.
Categories
We have divided the puzzles on our website into several categories. The number of categories will not change significantly. However, if you feel the need to create a new puzzle category, please contact us using the contact form.
Main categories
The puzzle categories can be found at the top of the screen – we invite you to explore.
After entering a category page, you'll see the puzzles that have been the most popular recently. Below, you'll find the most interesting puzzles ever added to this category, starting with the newest. Every day, you can expect new puzzles, both among the most popular and the newest.
Subcategories
In some categories, you can easily spot several different types of puzzles – for example, in a category with landscapes, part of the puzzle might show mountains and part the sea. We highlight the most popular of these by marking them as highly recommended.
Seasonal categories
Some categories are not visible on the website year-round. These are categories related to seasons or holidays. They appear several weeks before the event and disappear shortly afterward. However, if you want to solve a Valentine's puzzle in the middle of gloomy autumn, just visit the category list page, which has all the categories—year-round and holiday—available all year round.
Cleanup in categories
Sometimes puzzles are placed in the wrong category. This can happen by mistake when creating the puzzle, or because an image fits into more than one category. We try to keep our categories organized, so occasionally we move puzzles between them. Please don’t be upset :) Links to your puzzles will still work, no matter which category they're moved to, so this won't break, for example, your browser tabs. From time to time, various organizations report copyright issues with images posted on our website. In such cases, we respond by removing the puzzle from the site.
Special listings
Some puzzles are timeless and remain popular for a long time. We want to help you find them. On the homepage, you'll find special puzzle lists that are constantly updated. There you can find the most popular puzzles from the last week, month, and year. Or maybe you want to go back in time with Sliding Tiles and see what puzzles were solved a year ago. We also showcase puzzles that, immediately after being created, attracted a lot of interest from players – the best debuts.
Here you'll also find the latest puzzles that you can solve first and help present in the categories. Help us discover hidden gems among puzzles submitted by our community. Become a puzzle explorer!
The dozen or so categories of puzzles certainly don’t cover the beauty and complexity of the world, which is represented in the hundreds of thousands of images available at Sliding Tiles. When creating new puzzles from a photo, we encourage you to provide additional information about what the puzzles contain. Based on this information, we create tags for each puzzle. Tags let you contribute to our website. You’re not limited by the categories we created. You can add your own tags to your puzzles and then find them with a single click.
Puzzle visibility
Not all puzzles appear in popular places on our website. Before we display your picture prominently, it must gain some popularity and be eagerly solved. However, this doesn’t mean your new puzzles are unavailable. They will always be visible on the latest puzzles page and on your account page.
Difficulty levels
When creating new puzzles, the author chooses a default number of pieces. This number is displayed on our website below each picture. However, you can always choose a different difficulty level. After entering the page with the puzzle pieces you want to solve, you can select any difficulty level before starting the puzzle. Even if the author created the puzzle with four pieces, nothing stops you from solving it with, for example, 400 pieces.
Game
How to play
The puzzle consists of sliding tiles into an empty space to rearrange them and complete the picture. There is exactly one empty space on the board, and you can move any tile adjacent to it into that space. Continue sliding tiles until the entire image is correctly assembled. Good luck!
Useful tools
Above the puzzle area, you will find a toolbar with several useful buttons:
Starts the puzzle at the selected difficulty level. Choose your preferred grid size before starting.
Pauses the game and the timer. Use this if you need to take a break without affecting your completion time.
Displays a small preview of the completed image. You can move this preview around if it blocks your view of the puzzle.
Shows the number of moves you have made so far. Click and hold this button to highlight the tiles that are not yet in their correct positions.
Allows you to select the grid size before starting the puzzle. Available options depend on the image’s dimensions and aspect ratio.
Toggles sound effects on or off. When enabled, a beep will sound each time you move a tile.
Displays the time elapsed since you made your first move. The timer pauses automatically when the game is paused.
Interrupting and resuming solving
All the puzzles you solve are automatically saved in case you need to stop and return later. You can find your unfinished puzzles on your account profile page. Additionally, if you visit the page of a puzzle you started but didn’t finish, you can continue from where you left off or start the puzzle from scratch.
Removing unfinished puzzles
If you don’t want to return to puzzles you started earlier, you can use the trash can icon on their list in your profile.
When a started game does not save
If interrupted games are not available to continue later, make sure you haven’t disabled this feature in your browser settings. For this functionality to work, you need to allow cookies and data storage in your browser. Also, using Incognito Mode can cause problems with saving your progress.
Information bar under the puzzle
Other puzzles by this author
Did you enjoy these puzzles? Wondering if their author has created other interesting puzzles? By clicking on the author’s nickname below the photo, you can easily see other puzzles created by this author. On this page, you can also start following any puzzles they add in the future to find them without any trouble.
The date the puzzle was created
By clicking on a puzzle’s creation date, you can view a list of all puzzles created on the same day. They are arranged by popularity, so you can easily find the most interesting pictures to solve.
Sharing puzzle pieces
Help us reach more puzzle enthusiasts by sharing information about us with your friends. Among the available options, you’ll find popular social networking sites, e-mail, or copying a link to the current page. More users mean more interesting puzzles and exciting puzzle challenges!
The best results
Division by sizes
All our puzzles have many difficulty levels to choose from. The difficulty level certainly affects the results achieved, so we have separate result lists for each difficulty level. You might have the highest score on your favorite 4x4 puzzle, but someone else could be on top of the podium for the same puzzle at a different difficulty level. If you prefer a certain number of pieces or have limited time to solve, you can specialize in certain puzzle sizes.
The date the puzzle was created
Shortened and complete result lists The top 10 rankers show only the top 10 scores. A longer list of the best solvers is available by clicking the option next to the shortened list. By achieving good results in many puzzles, you can find yourself in the periodic rankings of the best players on the site. If you have a user account and solve puzzles while logged in, you can also earn badges for your achievements.
Create a puzzle
On our website, you can create puzzles from your own pictures. When creating a new puzzle, you will upload a picture and provide some information about it. You also have the option to choose a default difficulty level for your puzzle pieces. If an uploaded image already exists on the website, instead of recreating it, we will tell you where to find the puzzle.
Legal Requirements
We try to ensure that the rights of the authors of uploaded images are respected, so images with embedded copyright protection information will be rejected. Sometimes we receive copyright infringement notifications after a puzzle has been created, and the puzzle is removed. All puzzles you create can be solved by all visitors, so be sure not to upload any pictures you wish to keep private.
User accounts
Accounts and anonymous users
Our website was created many years ago. From the start, we didn’t want to force anyone to create a user account to enjoy spending time solving puzzles on our website. Anyone can easily visit our site, spend a few seconds, minutes, or hours browsing and solving puzzles, and if they wish, sign their results. As a result, many people may sign in with the same name. While browsing puzzles solved by the user "Anna," you may see results from many different people on one list.
This approach isn’t ideal for the biggest puzzle fans. For these users, it’s important that their results are assigned only to them, and that the authors of puzzles they created are clearly identified. To make this possible, we introduced full user accounts. They provide additional features, the most important being a unique username—no two accounts can have the same name. Note that there may still be anonymous users signing in with the same nickname as a logged-in user. To distinguish user accounts from anonymous users, we use two different icons next to usernames.
Favorite puzzles
On our website, it’s easy to get lost among thousands of beautiful puzzles. Can’t decide which ones to choose? Worried you won’t find others a second time? Don’t worry! On each puzzle list and on puzzle pages, you’ll find a heart icon to mark your favorite puzzles. Puzzles marked this way can then be viewed from your account’s profile page. Use this to remember puzzles you want to solve later or come back to. Solving a puzzle doesn’t remove it from your favorites list. You can remove it yourself by clicking the heart icon again.
Added, solved, commented puzzles
On your profile page, you can easily find all the puzzles you’ve created. On separate lists, you’ll find all the puzzles you’ve solved and those you’ve commented on.
User following
Did you know you can visit other users’ profile pages? Just click the nickname of the puzzle creator on the page showing puzzles created by that person. You’ll arrive at a page showing all puzzles that user has created, where you’ll find a button to follow all new puzzles they add. By following your favorite puzzle makers, you can easily find their latest puzzles right on your profile page.
Periodic rankings
Rankings are calculated at the end of each period (week, month, year). Points are awarded separately for each puzzle and size. The top 30 scores for each puzzle over the period are scored. The higher the position in the ranking for an individual puzzle, the more points you earn for the periodic ranking (100 points for first place, 80 for second, etc.).
Only the user’s best score in a given puzzle counts toward the ranking.
The ranking depends on the number of puzzle solutions added by users during the period.
In the ranking of puzzles added, the result is influenced by the number of puzzles you added that were solved during the period (the more users solve puzzles you added, the higher your ranking).
Achievements
As you spend time on our site, you’ll have the chance to collect various awards and honors. Achievements are available only to logged-in users with verified accounts, so they’re clearly assigned to a specific solver. The list of achievements and badges changes over time—we want to recognize both those who solve and create puzzles that are gladly featured on our site.
What achievements are there and for what
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Number of completions of all puzzles you added
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Number of puzzles you solved first
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Number of followers
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Number of puzzles where you achieved the best time
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The number of puzzles in which you made the least number of moves
Problems
I'd like to report a puzzle problem
There is an icon with an exclamation mark on the puzzle page. By using it, you can draw our attention to inappropriate content, copyright infringement, or similar issues. We do our best to respond to these reports promptly.
My result is not ranked on the puzzle page
The high score rankings for each puzzle size are updated every 10 minutes.
If your result is among the best, it will appear on the leaderboard after that time.
The screen for creating your own puzzles is blank
We have noticed that some AdBlock programs do not work properly on certain pages of our website and cause various issues.
One issue is that it can break the puzzle creation screen and prevent you from using this feature.
If this happens, please contact the AdBlock developer directly.
Solving doesn't work
There are many different web browsers in use around the world. Some have not been updated for over 10 years.
For this reason, you may sometimes experience problems solving puzzles, and it is not always possible for us to fix them.
Try to keep your web browser up-to-date to avoid most of these problems. However, if you still have trouble solving puzzles, please contact us using the contact form and describe the issue you encountered. We will do our best to find a solution.
I would like to remove a puzzle from the page
There are many reasons why someone might want to remove a puzzle from our site.
Sometimes private photos were not intended to be seen as puzzles by everyone, and sometimes you simply changed your mind and no longer want your picture to be solved.
It is also possible that someone visible in the photo objected before their image was placed on our website.
We understand. You can easily find puzzles you have created on your account profile page.
To remove a puzzle, go to the page where you can solve it and use the icon with an exclamation mark below the picture.
Briefly explain your reason, and we will try to respond quickly.
Due to the very large number of images uploaded, we cannot search for your photos based on their description or a fragment of the puzzle’s name.
Using the icon with an exclamation mark under the image provides us with exact information about the image, allowing us to remove it.
How can I disable AdBlock only on your website?
Each AdBlock works differently, but most have configuration options available after clicking the extension icon next to the browser’s address bar.
If you use many extensions, the AdBlock icon may not be visible by default; you may need to expand the full list of extensions by clicking the appropriate icon.
I can't see my previously started puzzles
You can find your started puzzles on the home page as well as on your user account page.
Remembering started puzzles requires saving data in your web browser.
Make sure you have not restricted this in your browser settings or that you are not using incognito mode.
Keep in mind that started puzzles are stored in a specific browser, so they will not be available on another computer or device, even if you log in there as well.
I cannot log in
Please make sure you have registered on our website.
Saving a nickname after solving a puzzle or posting a comment does not mean you have an account.
I have another problem, how can I contact you?
If you have a problem with a specific puzzle, it is best to use the icon with an exclamation mark under the picture.
For other issues, please use the contact form in the footer, preferably from the page where the problem occurred.