How to play Snip
A red jewel hangs from ropes above an empty room. Somewhere below or beside it stands an open crate. Cut the ropes so the jewel swings, falls or floats into the crate, and pick up the three coins on the way if you can.
There are 24 levels. Early ones take a single cut; later ones add pegs that catch the jewel, bubbles that lift it and springy bumpers that throw it. Clear a level to unlock the next. Nothing is timed except the swing itself.
Rules
- A rope holds the jewel no farther from its peg than the rope is long. It can go slack and snap taut again, so a jewel on one rope swings like a pendulum. Once cut, a rope never comes back.
- A peg with a dashed ring around it grows a new rope the first time the jewel passes inside the ring. The new rope is as long as the ring is wide, and it can be cut like any other.
- A bubble that touches the jewel swallows it and carries it upwards, slowing any sideways drift only gradually. Tap the bubble or press Space to pop it and the jewel falls again. At the top, the ceiling stops the bubble.
- Hatched bars are bumpers: they bounce the jewel back hard, always with a firm kick. Plain ink bars are ledges with a dull bounce. The walls and ceiling of the room are solid.
- The crate only takes the jewel through its open top. The level is clear when the jewel drops inside; if it falls out of the bottom of the room, try again.
- A clear scores 400, plus 200 for each coin the jewel touched on the way, so up to 1,000. Your run score adds up your best on each level, so replaying can only raise it.
Controls
- Swipe / drag
- Cut every rope the stroke crosses
- 1 – 9
- Cut that rope (the number sits by its peg)
- Tap the bubble / Space
- Pop the bubble
- R
- Restart the level
- Enter / Space
- Next level after a delivery; try again after a miss
Tips
- Watch one full swing before cutting anything. Where the jewel is fastest, at the bottom of the arc, is where a cut throws it farthest.
- Cut the rope on the side you want the jewel to swing away from, then cut the last one as it rises toward the crate.
- A cut does not need to be quick or neat: any stroke across the rope works, and one stroke can cut two ropes at once.
- The coins sit on a path that works. If you can reach the crate but not the coins, try the same cuts a beat earlier or later.
Snip strategy
How the swing works
Gravity is the same in every level, and a rope only ever pulls the jewel back toward its peg. So a jewel on one taut rope is a pendulum: fastest at the bottom of its arc and stopped for an instant at each end. Cut at the bottom and it flies off sideways at full speed; cut at an end and it drops straight down. Everything between is a mix, which is why the same cut a quarter of a second apart sends the jewel to very different places.
Two ropes, three ropes
With several ropes the jewel hangs where they balance. Cutting one turns the rest into a new pendulum around whichever peg is now holding it, starting from wherever the jewel was. So the order of the cuts matters as much as their timing: cut the rope on the far side first and the jewel swings toward it, then cut the last rope when the swing is carrying it toward the crate.
Pegs and bubbles
A ringed peg catches the jewel only once, with a rope exactly as long as the ring’s radius, so it turns a fall into a short, tight swing around the peg. In a bubble the jewel rises at a steady pace of roughly 170 pixels a second on a 540-pixel-high board, while any sideways speed it carried in fades slowly. Pop it when it is above the crate and slightly before, since the jewel keeps drifting the way it was going as it falls.
Bumpers and ledges
A bumper keeps 85% of the jewel’s speed and always pushes it off at a decent pace, even after a gentle touch, so a jewel left resting on one keeps hopping. Ledges and the crate’s sides soak up most of a bounce instead. The walls and ceiling of the room are solid too: a wild swing hits them and drops, rather than leaving the room.
Chasing coins
A clear is worth 400 and each coin adds 200, so all three coins more than doubles a level’s points. The coins lie along a route that a solver confirmed reaches the crate, so they also hint at the intended order of cuts. Your run keeps your best result per level, and a miss costs nothing, so trying for the last coin is free.
About Snip
Rope-cutting puzzles became one of the classic touch-screen genres in the early smartphone years: a sweet or a ball on strings, a swipe to cut them, and physics doing the rest. Snip is our own take, with a jewel, a crate and ink-and-paper drawings in place of cartoon characters.
All 24 levels were designed for this site. For each one, a program searched every way of timing the cuts and pops to a tenth of a second and kept a solution that collects all three coins; we then checked that it still works when each action comes a frame or two early or late.
Questions
Is every level possible with all three coins?
Yes. A solver found a three-coin solution for each of the 24 levels, and the game’s own physics replays those solutions as a test whenever the levels or the physics change.
How is the score calculated?
Each cleared level is worth 400 points, plus 200 for every coin, up to 1,000. Your run score adds up your best on each level, up to 24,000.
Can I play with a keyboard?
Yes. The number keys 1 to 9 cut the matching rope, Space pops a bubble, R restarts and Enter moves on. On a phone or tablet, swipe across the ropes with your finger.
Is my progress saved?
Yes, in this browser: which levels you have cleared and your best coin count on each. Your scores stay in this browser unless you link up with colleagues, who then see your best run score.
