How to play Pack the Suitcase

What a packing puzzle is

A packing puzzle gives you an empty shape, made of squares, and a set of pieces that also cover a few squares each. Every piece has to go in, none may overlap or hang outside, and when you are done no square is left empty. The pieces are the same family as the shapes in falling block games, but here nothing falls and nothing is cleared: you have one area and exactly enough pieces to fill it.

Because the pieces fill the space exactly, a packing puzzle has no slack. One piece in the wrong place can make the last two impossible, and the trouble may not show until the very end. Good packers think about the gaps they leave behind, not only about where the next piece fits.

Playing Pack the Suitcase on AllFun

AllFun Pack the Suitcase turns the pieces into travel things: a passport, flip-flops, a camera, a snorkel, a pair of skis. Each level is a bag shown as a grid, with a tray of items beside it. The 156 levels follow six trips of 26, Beach Weekend, City Break, Ski Trip, Safari, Tropical Island and World Tour, and the bags change from a carry-on to a duffel, a big suitcase and odd shapes with cut corners.

Drag an item into the bag; it turns green where it fits and snaps in when you let go. Tap it to turn it a quarter. Each finished trip leaves a postcard stamped in your passport. The puzzle games page lists the rest of our puzzles.

The rules

• Everything in: every item in the tray goes into the bag.
• No gaps: every square of the bag is filled, and nothing hangs over the edge.
• Turning: any item may be turned a quarter at a time, unless its label says otherwise.
• Folding: towels, maps, scarves and T-shirts fold into a new shape of the same size, with the small fold button.
• This side up: from the Ski Trip on, an item with a green arrow must stay upright and cannot be turned or folded.
• Fragile: from the Safari on, fragile things such as a camera or a vase must lie on the soft pink padding.

Moves and stars

Every drop into the bag counts as a move. Pack within two moves of the number of items for three stars; a few more moves still earn two. Undo takes a move back, Reset empties the bag, and Hint places one item where it belongs. You start with three hints and earn more: one every third level, and three for each trip you finish. Each bag is made from a real packing, so there is always an answer.

A packing order that works

1. Biggest and oddest first. The long skis and the L-shaped boots have few places they can go. Put them in while there is still room to choose.
2. Fill corners and edges early. A corner square can only be reached by a few pieces. Leave the open middle for the small, easy items.
3. Never leave a hole of one square unless you have a one-square item to put in it. Before each drop, check what shape the gap behind it will be.
4. Place fixed items before free ones. Upright items and fragile ones on the padding have the fewest choices, so they go in before the items that can turn and fold.
5. Fold before you rearrange. When an item will not fit, try its folded shape before you take anything out.
6. Count black and white. Imagine the bag as a chessboard. A two-square piece always covers one dark and one light square, and a T-shape covers three of one and one of the other. If the counts of what is left cannot match the gap, undo now instead of later.

Packing puzzle FAQ