How to play Arrow Escape
Arrow Escape has one rule you need on the first board and a handful you meet later. This page covers all of them, in the order the game introduces them.
The one rule
Every piece on the board carries an arrow. Tap a piece and it slides out of the board in the direction its arrow points — but only if nothing stands between it and the edge. If another piece is in the way, the tap does nothing and the piece stays put.
Clear every piece and the level is done. That is the whole game: not speed, not reflexes, but working out an order in which everything can leave.
Your first boards, step by step
- Look for a piece whose path to the edge is completely empty. That piece can go now.
- Tap it. It leaves, and whatever it was blocking may now have a clear path.
- Repeat. Each piece you remove opens lines for the others.
- If nothing can move, you went wrong earlier — undo and try another order.
Undo, restarts and hints
Every board gives you three free undos. Use them to step back out of a mistake rather than starting over. If you run out of undos while the board is stuck, the level resets to its starting position, so you never lose more than one board's worth of work.
A hint shows you one safe move. Hints cost coins, which you earn by clearing levels and playing the daily board, so they are there when you are truly stuck rather than as a shortcut.
How stars are awarded
Stars measure how cleanly you read the board, not how fast you were.
- Three stars: no taps on blocked pieces, no hints, and no dead ends.
- Two stars: at most two blocked taps, one hint and one dead end.
- One star: any clear at all.
- A perfect clear is three stars without touching undo.
What changes as you go
The first two levels are a tutorial. From level 3 the boards start to contain traps — moves that are legal but leave the board unsolvable. New pieces arrive gradually: shutters from level 10, locks and switches from level 25, rotators and portals much later. Each one is introduced on its own before it is mixed with the others.
Every one of the 1,000 levels has been solved by a machine before it shipped, so a board you are stuck on is hard, never broken.
Questions
Is there a time limit?
Not in the main levels. Take as long as you like; stars depend on clean play, not on the clock. Time attack is a separate mode for people who want one.
What happens if I tap a blocked piece?
Nothing moves and nothing is lost, but it counts as a misread for the star rating.
Can a level have more than one solution order?
Often several orders work. What is guaranteed is that at least one does, checked by the solver.