Ballast

About Ballast

Ballast gives you five crates and a balance scale. Each crate weighs a different whole number of kilograms from 1 to 5, and they all look the same. You can put any crates on the left pan and any others on the right, press Weigh, and the scale tips to the heavier side or balances. Every weighing goes into a history list, a counter shows how many orderings are still possible, and each crate's label shows which weights it could still be.

When you are sure, you arrange the crates lightest to heaviest and submit. Your score is the number of weighings; a wrong answer adds one as a penalty but tells you how many crates were in the right place. Par is five weighings for the daily puzzle. Solving it unlocks a six-crate hard puzzle with a par of six, and there is an archive of past days, unlimited practice and a short three-crate warm-up for first-timers.

The daily puzzle is the same for everyone on the same calendar day and changes at local midnight. The game is free in the browser, with no account and, at the time of writing, no ads. It is one of a set of small daily games by Yuki Andersen, along with Well Putt, Floe and Wellspring.

How to play Ballast

1. Open Ballast; first-timers can try the 30-second warm-up.
2. Tap crates to move them from the bench to the left pan, the right pan, or back.
3. Press Weigh and note which side sinks or whether the scale balances.
4. Repeat until the counter of possible orderings reaches one.
5. Arrange the answer row from lightest to heaviest and press Submit.

Tips

• Weigh two crates against one: the result can split the possibilities into thirds rather than halves.
• If a pair loses to a single crate, the pair is almost certainly 1 and 2 or 1 and 3, and the single crate is heavy.
• Watch the possibilities counter to see which weighing tells you the most before you press Weigh.

Questions