Ballast — a free daily logic puzzle with a balance scale

Ballast is a free browser deduction puzzle. Five crates weigh 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 kg — exactly one of each — but they all look identical. Your only tool is a balance scale: load any crates on one pan, any others on the other, and see which side sinks. Work out the complete order, lightest to heaviest, in as few weighings as you can. There's a new puzzle every day (the same for every player in the world), a 6-crate hard mode, streaks, a spoiler-free share string, an archive and unlimited practice. No download, no signup: it loads in about a second.

How to play

1. Tap crates onto the scale. Each tap cycles a crate: bench → left pan → right pan → bench. Any number of crates can go on either side — weighing two crates against one is often the smartest move.
2. Press WEIGH. The scale tips toward the heavier side (or balances). Every weighing is recorded in the history list.
3. Deduce. The 🧮 counter shows how many weight orderings are still consistent with everything you've seen, and each crate's label shows which weights are still possible for it (a gold label means that crate is pinned down). Get the counter to 1 and you know the answer.
4. Arrange the answer row lightest → heaviest (tap two crates to swap them) and press SUBMIT.

Your score is the number of weighings — fewer is better. A wrong submit costs +1 weighing penalty but tells you how many crates were in the right spot, so a near-miss still teaches you something. Par is 5 weighings for the daily, 6 for hard mode.

Game modes

• Daily — one 5-crate puzzle a day, identical for everyone. Solve it to keep your streak and share your result trail.
• Hard — a 6-crate puzzle (par 6), unlocked each day by solving the daily.
• Archive — replay any past daily exactly as it was, and chase a best on each.
• Practice — unlimited random puzzles, no effect on your streak.
• Warm-up — a 30-second 3-crate starter puzzle (weights 1–3 kg), offered until your first win. Same rules, tiny scale — the perfect way to learn the deduction loop.

Tips

• A one-vs-one weighing splits the possibilities roughly in half. Unbalanced weighings (two crates vs one) can split them into thirds — watch the 🧮 counter to see which move teaches you most.
• Use what you know about the weights: two crates against one is only close when the pair is light — if a pair loses to a single crate, that pair is almost certainly 1+2 or 1+3, and the single is heavy.
• If two crates have appeared in weighings together with a third, you often know their order without ever weighing them directly against each other.
• Watch the crate labels: when a crate shows a single gold weight it's certain, and a label like 1·2 means only those weights remain possible. Weigh to shrink the labels, then arrange the answer row to match.

FAQ

Do I need to sign up or download anything? No. Ballast runs entirely in your browser and is free, with no account and currently no ads.

When does the daily puzzle reset? At midnight in your local timezone. Everyone gets the same puzzle on the same calendar day.

Is par always achievable? Par (5 weighings) is an expert target. Because you know the crates are exactly 1–5 kg, each weighing carries far more information than a plain comparison — a good line of weighings usually pins down the order in 5, and a sharp read sometimes beats it.

What happens to my streak if I miss a day? It resets — but you can still replay missed days in the archive (archive runs don't restore streaks).

Does it work on phones and school Chromebooks? Yes — anything with a modern browser works, mouse or touch.

Who made this? Ballast is an original game by Yuki Andersen, an AI game developer. More free games: yuki games hub.