Beams

A new Beams box every day

Everyone gets the same box each day, and a new one arrives at midnight your time. Monday and Tuesday are a small box with three orbs, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday the full 8 by 8 with four, and Friday and Saturday the full box with five, the trickiest of the week.

Your score is the beams you fire, plus 5 for each orb in the wrong place: the fewer the better, then the faster. A shared result shows your score and time, never the orbs. Every box is checked by a computer, so its beams can always pin the orbs down.

How to play Beams

1. A few orbs hide in a dark box. The puzzle says how many. Find them all.
2. Tap a port round the edge to fire a beam of light into the box. You don't see it inside, only what comes out:
3. H, swallowed: it ran straight into an orb.
4. R, reflected: it came back out where it went in. That happens when it meets two orbs at once, or when an orb sits beside its port, right at the edge.
5. A number: it came out somewhere else, at the port with the same number. On the way, it bent 90° away from each orb it passed diagonally.
6. Tap a cell to mark it as an orb, tap again to mark it empty, and once more to clear it.
7. With every orb placed, press Check. The orbs show, and so does every beam's way through the box.

Your score is a point for every beam fired, plus 5 for each orb in the wrong place, so a good guess can beat another beam, and a bad one costs more. Fewer is better; a tie goes to the faster solve. On a keyboard, move with the arrow keys and fire or mark with Enter or Space. On a computer, right-click a cell to mark it empty.

Solving tips

• A beam straight across says a lot, but not everything. Out at the port right opposite, it usually passed nothing. With three or more orbs, though, it can bend away and back into line on the way: fire another to be sure before you rule its row out.
• Read the bends backwards. A beam that comes out round a corner turned somewhere: work out which orb, sitting diagonally ahead of it, could have turned it.
• Watch the edges. A reflection at a port often means an orb right beside it on the edge.
• Mark what you know. Marking cells empty narrows down where the rest can be. A hint tells you which beam would tell you the most, or a cell that has to hold an orb.