Parker (Mind Loft)
Slide the blocks on a jammed 6x6 lot until the red one reaches the exit.
Every day: One 6x6 sliding block board a day, the same for every player, with a par and a proven fewest-moves perfect score. Boards get longer through the week and the Sunday Edition is the longest. Daily leaderboard. New puzzle: Midnight US Eastern Time.
Parker is a free daily sliding block puzzle from Mind Loft. A dozen blocks fill a six by six lot, each moving along one axis only, and you have to clear a path for the red block to the gap in the right wall. Each board shows a par and the proven fewest moves, and there is no undo.
About Parker (Mind Loft)
Parker is a sliding block puzzle in the style of Rush Hour, one of the logic dailies on Mind Loft, a free site of daily browser games. The board is a six by six lot jammed with long and short blocks. Horizontal blocks slide only left and right, vertical ones only up and down, and the red block has to reach the gap in the right-hand wall.
You tap a block to pick it up and tap where it should go; it moves if the lane is clear. There is no undo, only a full restart of the board, so each move counts toward your total. A Hint button and a Give up option sit under the board.
Every board is generated by machine and then solved exactly, and the result is checked by a second solver written separately, so the perfect figure shown is truly the fewest moves possible. Par is set a little above perfect and is the number a clean solve tends to land on. On the day we looked, par was 26 and perfect was 20.
Boards get longer through the week, from around a dozen moves on Monday to about twenty on Saturday, and the Sunday Edition runs longer than any of them. A new board goes up at midnight US Eastern Time. It suits players who like Gridlock-style car puzzles and want a single scored board a day rather than a level pack.
How to play Parker (Mind Loft)
- Open mindloftdaily.com/parker and press Start to see the day's lot.
- Tap a block to pick it up, then tap the square you want it to move to along its own line.
- Clear a lane and move the red block out through the gap in the right wall.
- Try to finish at or under par; perfect is the fewest moves that exist.
- There is no undo, so use Restart board if a line goes wrong.
Tips
- Work backwards from the exit: list the blocks in the red block's row, then what stops each of them moving.
- A long move counts as one move, so slide a block as far as it needs to go in one go.
- Plan several moves ahead before touching anything, since there is no undo.
- Monday boards are short; use them to learn the habit of counting moves before playing.
Questions
What is par in Parker?
Par is a move count a little above the proven minimum, about what a clean solve reaches. Perfect is the fewest moves that exist for that board.
Can I undo a move in Parker?
No. You can only restart the whole board.
Is Parker free?
Yes. Parker runs in the browser on mindloftdaily.com at no cost. There is no app and no account to make; entering a display name only puts your result on the daily leaderboard.
When does a new Parker come out?
Every day at midnight US Eastern Time, with the same board for every player. Sundays bring the Sunday Edition, a longer board than any other day.
Can I play old Parker boards?
Yes. Mind Loft keeps past days in its puzzle archive, together with each day's standings.
Games like Parker (Mind Loft)
Gridlock Puzzles (Puzzleship)
Slide cars and trucks aside to free the taxi, the same puzzle type as Parker
Carom
Steer a piece to the goal in the fewest moves, a daily move-counting puzzle
Digit Shift (Ponder Club)
Slide numbered tiles back into order, one daily board for everyone
Floe (Yuki Games)
A daily sliding puzzle scored on moves
Mate (Mind Loft)
Mind Loft's daily chess endgame, named on the Parker page as a next game
Arrow Escape (Puzzleship)
Slide pieces off the board in the right order, another clear-the-jam daily
Junkyard (Mind Loft)
The biggest daily sliding-block jam: an eight by eight lot of nearly thirty blocks.
Mercury (Mind Loft)
A daily sudoku with thermometers: digits rise from each bulb to its tip.