Free the target car through three timed traffic puzzles
Traffic Jam is a sliding vehicle puzzle played on a 6×6 grid packed with cars and trucks. Each vehicle can only move along its own axis — horizontal vehicles slide left and right, vertical vehicles slide up and down. None of them can rotate, jump over other vehicles, or change axis. Your goal is to clear a direct horizontal path and move the target car out through the exit on the right side of the board.
The game consists of three progressively harder stages — Easy, Medium, and Hard — played back to back. Easy stages require around 10 moves to solve. Medium stages require 11 to 13 moves. Hard stages require 14 to 16 moves. These are minimum-move counts; you can always take more steps, but doing so costs time. Your leaderboard score is based entirely on the total time you spend across all three stages combined — there is no penalty for extra moves.
Traffic Jam exercises logical reasoning above all. The vehicle dependencies form a chain: something blocks the target car, something else blocks that blocker, and so on. Seeing that chain clearly and quickly is what separates fast solvers from slow ones. Pattern recognition helps you identify common blocking configurations from experience, and processing speed determines how quickly you can execute the solution sequence once you have it planned.
Click or tap any vehicle to select it, then drag to slide it along its track. Vehicles stop the moment they contact another vehicle or a wall. You cannot move a vehicle through an occupied cell, and vehicles cannot be rotated. The target car is marked distinctly. Its row aligns with the exit arrow on the right border — that is the opening the car must reach.
To complete a stage, the target car's row must be fully clear from its current position to the right border. When the path is open, the car slides out automatically. Each of the three stages must be solved before the next one appears. The timer runs continuously — it does not pause between stages — so your transition time is part of your total score.
Every daily puzzle is precomputed and verified to be solvable. The puzzle database guarantees a solution exists from the starting board state, so there is never a case where the puzzle cannot be completed. If you feel stuck, the path exists — the question is finding it.
Scoring: Traffic Jam uses time-based exponential decay. The formula starts near 10,000 for extremely fast runs and falls as time increases, with a 30-second half-life. Solving all three stages in around 10 seconds yields roughly 7,900 points. Finishing in 30 seconds gives 5,000 points. A minute gives about 2,500 points. Two minutes gives around 625. Move count has no effect on your score — only total time matters. Planning one extra second before moving is almost always cheaper than making a wrong move and undoing it.
Traffic Jam
Free the target car through three timed stages on a 6x6 grid.
Work backwards from the exit. Start every stage by identifying what is directly blocking the target car. That blocker is your first priority. Then ask what is preventing that blocker from moving. This dependency chain almost always leads straight to the correct solution order. Following the chain forward from random pieces is far less reliable and wastes time.
Identify the critical path and ignore everything else. Only vehicles in the target car's row and the vehicles blocking those blockers actually matter. Many vehicles on the board play no role in the solution. Moving them wastes time and can create new obstructions. Once you identify the three to five vehicles that form the dependency chain, focus exclusively on those and leave the rest untouched.
Handle long trucks with specific intent. Three-tile trucks have very limited mobility — they need three consecutive clear cells to move, which is often unavailable in a packed grid. The entire puzzle frequently revolves around finding the one open position where a blocking truck can be temporarily parked. Identify that position before you start moving pieces, or you may find yourself unmovable after a few slides.
Plan the full sequence before touching anything. Because time is the only scoring factor, a one-second pause to mentally simulate the full move order before touching the board is almost always worth it. Moving the first piece without knowing where the chain leads can force undo-and-redo sequences that cost far more time than the initial planning pause.
Build your transition speed between stages. The timer does not stop when a stage is solved. The moment a new grid appears, you have already started losing score. Train yourself to immediately begin scanning the new board for the blocking chain the instant it loads — treat the transition as part of the solve, not as a break between puzzles.
Reset your mental model when stuck. If you have moved several pieces without progress, stop and re-read the blocking chain from scratch rather than continuing in the same direction. A fresh read almost always surfaces the dependency you missed. The puzzle is not getting harder as you spend time on it — your first read just had a blind spot.
