takara
Like Train Tracks? Try Takara
If you solve Train Tracks, you already know how to start Takara. It is one route through a grid, and the numbers along the edges say how many squares of each row and column it covers. What is new is where the route goes: from an entrance to a treasure, past walls, voids and arrows that each rule out a little more.
Play Takara →Play today’s puzzle
What you already know
- Edge counts. A number beside a row or column is how many of its squares the route covers, as in Train Tracks. A 0 empties a line, and a count that equals its free squares fills it.
- One unbroken route. It steps up, down, left and right, never branches and never visits a square twice, so a route square with only two ways out uses both of them.
- Ends that are given. Train Tracks shows where the line enters and leaves the board; Takara gives you the entrance and the treasure, and the route runs between them.
What is new
- Walls and voids give the board its shape: the route never crosses a wall or enters a void, so a board can be any shape, not only a rectangle.
- Arrows and four-way markers are squares the route must pass through; an arrow also says which way it leaves.
- Bounds and decoys on harder boards: a ≥ or ≤ beside a row is a limit rather than a count, and when there is more than one treasure, only one is real.
The rules of Takara
- Find the one route from the entrance to the treasure 宝. It steps up, down, left and right, never crosses a wall or itself, never enters a void, and never visits a square twice.entrancewallvoidtreasure
- A number beside a row or column says how many of its squares the route covers. The entrance and the 宝 also count as squares of that row or column. No number means no constraint. A clue with ≥ or ≤ is a bound rather than a count: ≥2 says the route covers at least two squares of that row or column, ≤2 at most two.rowcolumnat leastat most
- An arrow is a square the route must pass through, leaving in the direction it points. A four-way marker only says the route comes through — any way in, any way out. It is drawn with only the ways that are open, so one in a corner has two arms.arrowfour-waycorner
- More than one 宝 means only one is real. The rest are decoys: exactly one sits at the end of a route that satisfies every other clue.特 specialimpostor