How to play Tinker Tumble

What a screw puzzle is

A screw puzzle, also called a nuts and bolts puzzle, shows a board of flat plates stacked on top of each other and pinned down by coloured screws. You take the screws out one by one. A plate held by a single screw swings from it, and a plate with no screws left drops off the board. The goal is to clear every plate.

The catch is where the screws go. They do not simply disappear: each one has to be put away by colour, and the places to put them are few. So the puzzle is about order. You have to see which screws are free now, which colours are wanted next, and which plates are hiding the screws you will need later.

Playing Tinker Tumble on AllFun

AllFun Tinker Tumble sets the puzzle on a toy maker's pegboard, with lacquered wooden plates and screws in nine colours. Every colour also has its own mark on the screw head, a cross, a slot, a star and so on, so you can sort by shape alone. Tap a screw to take it out; on a computer, click it.

The 160 levels are spread over eight corners of the workshop, from Sawdust Corner to the Master's Table, 20 in each. Every level you clear adds a part to that corner's toy, and finished toys go on your Toy Shelf. Glass plates arrive from level 41 and locked plates from level 81. Every level is made from a way to clear it, so none is impossible. See more on our puzzle games page.

The rules

• Covered screws stay put. A screw can only come out when no plate above it lies over its head.
• Two tins at a time. The bench holds two open tins, each wanting one colour. Three screws of that colour fill a tin; it closes and the next tin in the line slides in.
• The spare tray. A screw with no open tin of its colour goes into a hole of the spare tray, five holes in most levels. It hops into its tin by itself as soon as that colour arrives.
• Stuck. When every hole of the spare tray is taken and nothing in it fits an open tin, the level is lost.
• Glass plates block like any plate, but you can see the screws beneath them.
• Locked plates keep their screws until the key screw, on another plate, has been taken out.

Helpers and stars

Each level gives you one free Extra hole for the spare tray, one Drill that takes out any screw even under other plates, and one Clear box that moves everything in the spare tray aside to wait for its tins. Clearing a level earns a star. A second star is for never having more than three screws waiting in a five-hole spare tray, and the third for finishing within the time.

A solving method that works

1. Read the two tins first. Before you tap anything, find every free screw of the two wanted colours. Those moves cost nothing.
2. Then free the top plates. A plate that falls uncovers everything under it at once. Count how many screws a plate needs and start with the plate that is closest to falling.
3. Treat the spare tray as a budget. Every screw you send there is a debt. Keep two or three holes empty for the moment a buried screw has nowhere else to go.
4. Think one tin ahead. When a tin is two screws from full, look for the colour that comes next and whether its screws are reachable.
5. Take key screws early. A locked plate often covers a lot of the board. Opening it early gives you more choices later.
6. Save the Drill for deep screws. It is worth most on a screw under two or three plates, not on one you could free in a move.

Screw puzzle FAQ