How do you play Lights Off?
Tap any bulb on the grid and it flips together with the bulbs directly above, below, left and right of it. Turn every bulb off to clear the level. Lit bulbs go dark and dark bulbs light up.
Edge bulbs only have three neighbors and corner bulbs only two, so they change fewer lights. The board grows from 3×3 through 4×4, 5×5 and 6×6 to 7×7, for 120 levels in all.
What are the rules and how do stars work?
| Tap | The tapped bulb and its four neighbors switch between on and off. |
|---|---|
| Win | No bulb on the board is lit. |
| ★★★ | You finished in the fewest possible moves for that board |
| ★★ | You finished within twice the fewest moves |
| ★ | You finished, but with more taps than that |
Every level is built backwards from a dark board, so every level can be solved. The minimum shown at the top is the length of the shortest solution, worked out by the game.
What happens if you tap the same bulb twice?
Nothing changes. Two flips cancel out, and the order of your taps does not matter either. That is why a shortest solution never taps any bulb more than once.
So solving really comes down to picking which bulbs to tap. On 3×3, 6×6 and 7×7 boards every pattern has exactly one such set. On 4×4 and 5×5 boards some patterns cannot be solved at all, so the game only deals ones that can.
Tips for solving faster
- Chase the lights down. For every lit bulb in a row, tap the bulb right below it. Work down row by row and the lights end up only in the bottom row.
- Read the bottom row. The pattern left there tells you which top row bulbs to tap. Tap those, chase down once more and the board goes dark.
- Look for plus shapes. Five lit bulbs in a + shape go out with one tap in the middle.
- Never tap a bulb twice if you want three stars. A double tap is the same as no tap.
Stuck? Press 💡 Hint. A blue ring marks a bulb to tap next, and following the hints brings the remaining minimum down by one each time. Your stars and progress are saved in this browser.