Arrow Escape
Arrow Escape

Arrow Escape

One developer, five puzzle games

I'm Jing, and I made every game on this site: Arrow Escape, which is loaded above, and four more that each change one thing about clearing a board piece by piece, whether that is cars, helicopters, one-tile pictures or a 3D stack. The level solutions and guides here are worked out from the games' own level data.

About Arrow Escape

Arrow Escape is an arrow puzzle game played on a grid packed edge to edge with winding arrows, and the goal is to send every one of them off the board. I wrote the whole Arrow Escape puzzle in plain JavaScript on an HTML5 canvas, so you can play Arrow Escape online for free right here in the browser, with nothing to install and no account.

It is the plainest form of the rule the grid games on this site share. Traffic Escape and Helicopter Escape use the same rule with cars and helicopters, Arrow Puzzle - Tap Away shrinks every arrow to one tile, and Cube Escape moves to 3D. The game ships with 100 levels, from a 15 × 20 board with 47 arrows to a 44 × 58 board with 241.

Arrow Escape screenshots

Arrow Escape level 1: 15×20 board with 47 arrows
Level 1: 15 × 20 cells and 47 arrows, four hearts and no clock. Seven arrows can leave from the start.
Arrow Escape level 3: 20×20 board with 65 arrows
Level 3: the first square board, 20 × 20. Only one arrow is free at the start, the one at the top right pointing off the board.
Arrow Escape level 47: 30×40 board with 109 arrows
Level 47: 109 arrows on 30 × 40 that take 56 waves to clear, fewer than two arrows coming free per wave on average.
Arrow Escape level 100: 44×58 board with 241 arrows
Level 100: the largest of the hundred boards, 44 × 58 cells with 241 arrows and 16:05 on the clock.

How Arrow Escape works

When you tap an arrow, the game checks one thing: the straight line from its arrowhead to the edge of the board, in the direction it points. If every cell on that line is empty, the arrow slides out, its body following along its own path. If anything is in the way, the tap is blocked and costs one of your four hearts. The body never needs a clear path; only the line ahead of the head counts.

Tapping the same blocked arrow again is free until some other arrow has left. From level 2 each board has a clock of four seconds per arrow, never less than two minutes. When the hearts or the clock run out you can revive (one heart back, or two more minutes) or retry the board from its starting position.

Arrow Escape level 1 after 13 arrows have left, with one free arrow marked in green and one blocked arrow marked in red
Level 1 after its first 13 arrows have gone. Arrow 1 points down at column 12, row 13, and its line to the bottom edge is empty, so it can leave. Arrow 2 points up at column 3, row 7; its line ends at the arrow outlined in red, so tapping it now costs a heart.

How Arrow Escape gets harder

LevelsBoardArrowsFree at startClock
1–1015–35 × 20–4947–1621–9none on level 1, then 3:45–10:50
11–2525–36 × 25–5068–1713–104:35–11:25
26–5027–39 × 27–5387–1962–115:50–13:05
51–7531–41 × 31–5597–2124–126:30–14:10
76–10035–44 × 35–58116–2412–147:45–16:05
  • Level 1: No clock, 47 arrows, four hearts.
  • Level 2: The clock starts: 3:45 for 56 arrows.
  • Level 3: First square board. Every level divisible by 3, apart from multiples of 10, is square.
  • Level 10: First large board. Every tenth level is one, growing from 35 × 49 to 44 × 58.

Stuck on a level? Solutions for levels 1 to 100, ten levels per page, each with the board, the first move and the full move list.

Arrow Escape strategy

  1. On a full board, the only arrows that can be free are those whose head sits on the edge pointing outward. Level 3 has exactly one: column 20, row 1, pointing right.
  2. When several arrows are free, take the one that unblocks others. In level 10, the arrow at column 35, row 1 lets three more move as soon as it leaves, more than any of the other five free arrows.
  3. Find the bottleneck before the clock does. In level 11, once the first two waves are gone, 87 arrows are left and only one of them can move: up at column 3, row 4.
  4. Long arrows are not necessarily late arrows. In level 50 the best opener is a 49-cell arrow at column 39, row 20, and the 60-cell arrow, the longest in the game, is free by wave 13 of 64.
  5. Pace yourself against the waves, not the arrows. Level 100 gives 16:05 for 77 waves, about 12.5 seconds per wave.

Arrow Escape version history

  • — The current build of the game, with its 100 levels, was added to the site.
  • — Opening the game file's own address now takes you to this page instead of a bare game screen.
  • — Fixed a case where a board could come up empty.
  • — The revive no longer mentions ads: running out of hearts gives one heart back, running out of time gives two more minutes.
  • — Solutions for levels 1 to 100 published, and a link such as /?level=47 now opens the game at that level.

Arrow Escape FAQ

What happens after level 100?
The game keeps going: from level 101 it builds new boards as you reach them. The solutions on this site cover the 100 levels the game ships with.
Does tapping a blocked arrow twice cost two hearts?
No. A second tap on the same blocked arrow is free until another arrow has left the board. A tap on a different blocked arrow costs a heart again.
How long is the clock on a level?
Level 1 has none. From level 2 it is four seconds per arrow, at least two minutes, rounded up to the next five seconds: level 47 has 109 arrows and starts at 7:20.
Where is my progress saved?
In this browser's local storage, on this device only. The game reopens at the last level you played, and clearing the site's data resets it.

Arrow Escape details

Developer
Jing
Added
Levels
100 shipped, endless after that
Controls
Tap or click an arrow; pinch, scroll or the +/− buttons to zoom; drag to pan

Latest solutions

Guides

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