Crazy10s is a number-tile strategy game for two players — if you've ever played Scrabble, Words With Friends, or Sudoku, most of this will feel familiar within a minute. Here's everything, with worked examples.
Score points by placing number tiles so that every horizontal or vertical line they're part of adds up to exactly 10. You and your opponent share one board — tiles either of you has already placed are fair game to build from, the same way any Scrabble player can extend off any word already on the board, yours or theirs.
The board is 13×13 squares. Tiles are digits 0 through 9 plus 3 wild tiles, drawn from a shared bag of 80 (weighted toward the small-to-middle numbers, since those combine more easily; 8s and 9s are rare). The Daily Puzzle is played on a smaller 11×11 board. Each player holds a rack of 7 tiles at a time, refilling back up to 7 after every move — exactly like a Scrabble rack, just numbers instead of letters.
The very first move of the game must cover the board's center square, and must form a line of two or more tiles that sums to 10.
After the first move, every new move must connect to a tile already on the board. You can place one tile or several in a turn, as long as every line your placement touches or completes adds up to 10.
Tiles you place in the same turn don't need to touch each other directly — they can be connected through tiles already on the board, yours or your opponent's, as long as the whole line is contiguous with no empty gaps.
This is one of the more strategic parts of the game: a board that looks scattered often has several ready-made bridges hiding in it once you start looking for existing tiles you can build around.
A single tile you place can be part of both a horizontal line and a vertical line at the same time — and if both lines sum to 10, both score. This lets a well-placed move use more of your rack and score more points than a straight single-direction line would.
Use all seven tiles in one move and you get 20 extra points on top of the move's score. It only counts in games, not the Daily Puzzle.
0 is a playable tile like any other — it fits into a line without changing the total, which makes it useful for extending a line's length (and reaching bonus squares) without disturbing the math.
One exception: a move that places a single 0 and nothing else scores nothing. Because a 0 doesn’t change a line’s total, dropping one beside a line that already adds up to 10 would otherwise pay you that whole line’s value for one throwaway tile. The move is still legal — useful for opening or blocking a line — it just doesn’t score. A 0 played alongside another tile scores normally.
Bonus squares affect scoring only — they never change whether a move is mathematically valid. A line still has to add up to exactly 10 on the raw numbers before any bonus is applied.
Every square is labelled with what it does, and How to play, inside a game, lists the squares on that game's board. They come in three kinds:
A bonus only counts for a tile placed on it, on the turn it's placed. Tile multipliers apply first, then line multipliers apply to the resulting total — so a newly placed 3 on a DN square, in a line that also runs through a DL square you covered, counts as 3×2 in that line, and then the whole line's total is doubled.
A wild tile (★) can become any digit 0–9 — you choose the number when you place it. It's the one tile that can rescue a turn where nothing in your rack quite adds up. Once submitted, it locks in and looks identical to a real tile of that value from then on.
Besides placing tiles, you can Pass (skip your turn, score nothing), or Swap some or all of your rack for new tiles from the bag (also ends your turn with no score). Both are normal, sometimes-correct plays — holding a rack with nothing useful and forcing a bad placement is usually worse than swapping and waiting for a better turn.
The game ends one of two ways: someone empties their rack while the tile bag is also empty (they gain the value of whatever tiles are left in their opponent's rack), or six consecutive turns pass with no one scoring, ending the game immediately with each player's own remaining rack value counted against them.
Look for bridges before you look for open space. New players tend to hunt for empty stretches of board to build a fresh line; stronger play usually comes from spotting a tile already down that you can bridge around for a shorter, more efficient move.
Save 0s and low numbers for bridging, not for scoring alone. A 0 or 1 rarely helps you build a big line on its own, but it's exactly what you need to complete someone else's near-finished line.
Don't rush a wild tile. Since it can become anything, it's often worth more held back for a turn where it lands a high number on a multiplier or reaches a corner than spent early on an ordinary single line.
Watch the bag count. As the bag empties, emptying your own rack first becomes a real scoring opportunity — it's worth timing your last few moves around it rather than just playing whatever's biggest each turn.