Hanoi
Solve the classic puzzle
Three pegs, a stack of graduated disks, and one rule: a larger disk can never rest on a smaller one. Move the whole tower to another peg, one disk at a time. The puzzle is small enough to hold in your head and strict enough that a careless move costs you dozens.
How to play
Playing Hanoi
- 1
Tap a peg to pick up its top disk, then tap another peg to drop it.
- 2
Move only one disk per turn, and only ever the disk sitting on top of a stack.
- 3
Never place a larger disk on a smaller one. That move is illegal and the disk stays put.
- 4
Rebuild the entire stack on a different peg, in the same order, to finish the puzzle.
- 5
Judge a solve by its move count, not the clock. The classic measure is how few moves you used.
Tactics
Three ways to get better at Hanoi
Alternate with the smallest
Every other move is the smallest disk. Between those, exactly one legal move exists that does not touch it, so play the smallest disk, then play the only other move available.
Pick a direction, keep it
The smallest disk should always travel in the same rotation and never double back. With an odd number of disks, send it toward the target peg each time. With an even number, send it the other way.
Know your par
A stack of n disks needs 2^n minus 1 moves at best: 15 for four disks, 63 for six, 127 for seven. Go past that and at least one of your moves did no work toward the finished tower.
Inside Reel Games
Hanoi in the swipe feed
The puzzle sits in the same vertical feed as everything else in Reel Games, so it is one swipe from whatever you were just playing. It opens straight to the pegs with nothing to wait through. The game runs on your iPhone, which means a dead tunnel or an airplane seat changes nothing, and no ad ever lands between two attempts.
Good for the last ten minutes of a subway ride with no signal.
Next up
Games like this one
They are all in the same app, so trying one costs a swipe.
Sudoku
Puzzle
Fill the grid with perfect logic
Minesweeper
Strategy
Clear the board without triggering a mine
Maze 3D
Strategy
Find your way out from inside the maze
Hanoi is one of 47
Free to download, no ads, and the whole library keeps working when your signal does not.