Rope Untangle Game: Play Tangle Free Online

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In this guide

• How to play
• How crossings work
• The 40 levels and stars
• The Daily Knot
• 7 tips for faster untangling
• Rope untangle game FAQ
• Final verdict

How to play Tangle Free

Each board holds a set of ropes, and every rope joins two pegs of the same colour. The pegs sit on a grid of dots. Some dots are empty, and those empty dots are your workspace: a peg can move to any free dot on the board. The knot is undone when the ropes lie flat, with no rope passing over another one. That is the whole game, and it is harder than it sounds by level 20.

1. Press Play. The first level opens with four ropes and a gentle knot. The chips above the board show the level, your move count, the crossings still on the board, and your star total.
2. Press a peg and drag it. The peg follows your finger or mouse, and its rope stretches with it. While you drag, the Crossings chip keeps counting with the rope in the air, so you can test a spot before you commit to it.
3. Let go near a free dot. The nearest free dot glows gold while you drag. Release there and the peg snaps on with a click. Release too far from any dot, or on a dot that is taken, and the peg slides back where it came from. No harm done.
4. Watch the crossed ropes. Any rope that crosses another glows brighter, and a small white marker sits on each crossing point. Fix the glowing ropes first; the quiet ones are already fine.
5. Use Undo and Restart freely. Undo takes back your last move and gives the move back too, so experimenting is free. Restart deals the exact same knot again when you want a clean run at the stars.
6. Clear the last crossing to win. The moment the counter reaches zero, the level ends. You earn stars against par, the next level unlocks, and your best move count for the level is saved.

Controls for phone and PC

Action	Phone / tablet	PC / laptop
Move a peg	Press a peg, drag it to a free dot, release	Press a peg with the mouse, drag, release
Test a spot first	Hold the peg in the air and watch the Crossings chip	Hold the peg with the button down and watch the chip
Take back a move	Tap Undo under the board	Click Undo under the board
Deal the same knot again	Tap Restart	Click Restart
Pick another level	Tap Levels, then tap any open level	Click Levels, then click any open level
Play today's knot	Tap Daily	Click Daily
Sound on or off	Tap the speaker button	Click the speaker button

How crossings work

A crossing is any place where two ropes touch in a way that blocks the board. The plain case is an X: rope A passes over rope B, and the two lines meet at a point that is not a peg. Tangle Free checks this with exact geometry on every pair of ropes, every time anything moves, so the counter you see is always the true state of the board.

There is one quiet extra rule. If a peg comes to rest exactly in the middle of another rope, that also counts as a crossing, even though the lines do not form an X. The peg is sitting on the rope, and the board is not flat. The fix is the same as always: move the resting peg, or move one end of the rope it rests on. Two ropes can never share a peg, because every peg belongs to exactly one rope and every dot holds at most one peg, so touching at a shared point can never happen here.

The counter is live in a way most untangle games do not bother with. When you pick up a peg, its rope is treated as ending at your fingertip. Drag slowly across the board and you will see the Crossings chip rise and fall as the moving rope sweeps over its neighbours. That turns every drag into a free experiment: hover over a dot, read the number, and only let go when the number is one you like. The glow helps the same way. A rope involved in any crossing is drawn brighter with a soft halo, and each crossing point gets a white dot. When nothing glows and the chip reads zero, you are done.

The 40 levels and the star system

The campaign climbs in five-level steps. Levels 1 to 5 use four ropes, levels 6 to 10 use five, and the count keeps rising until the last two levels, which tie twelve ropes into the tightest knots on the board. Early levels teach the idea with room to spare. The middle levels are where the board fills up and a single peg often has to move twice. The final levels are proper bird nests: twelve ropes, sixty-six pairs that could cross, and very few dots that fix more than one problem at a time.

Every level shows a par score. Par is not a guess and it is not set by hand to taunt you. Each level is built by first placing the ropes in a layout with zero crossings, then scrambling the pegs with a recorded list of random moves. Par is the length of that list, which means undoing the scramble always solves the level in exactly par moves. A cleverer route may exist, and finding one feels great, but you will never beat par by much and you will never face a level that cannot be done. That is the deal this game makes with you: the knot is always fair.

Stars follow par. Finish in par moves or fewer and you earn three stars. Take up to half as many moves again and you earn two. Any other finish earns one. Stars are kept per level, your star total out of 120 sits in the chips row and in the Best counter, and replaying a level can only ever raise its stars, never lower them. Your best move count per level is saved too, so a level you once solved in six can dare you to do it in five.

The Daily Knot

Alongside the campaign sits the Daily Knot: one fresh puzzle every day, built from the date itself. The date seeds the generator, so every player on Earth gets the same knot on the same day, with seven to ten ropes depending on the date. Finish it and the day is stamped. Finish it again tomorrow and your streak grows. Miss a day and the streak resets to one on your next daily finish, while your best streak is kept on record.

The Daily Knot is a good habit loop for a reason. It is a slightly bigger knot than the early campaign levels, it takes most players a few minutes, and it cannot be farmed: once the day's knot is tied off, the Daily button tells you it is done and invites you back tomorrow. Campaign progress is separate, so a daily detour never costs you your place in the levels.

7 tips for faster untangling

1. Fix the longest rope first. A rope that spans the board crosses more lines than a short one. Moving one of its pegs closer to the other usually clears two or three crossings at once.
2. Work from the edges in. Pegs near the border have fewer neighbours. Settle the rim of the knot first and the middle often falls apart on its own.
3. Hover before you drop. The counter works while a peg is in the air. Sweep a peg slowly across the board and watch the number; the best dot is often one you were not aiming at.
4. One crossing left often means one peg is lying. With a single crossing, do not move the two ropes that cross. Move a third peg that rests on one of them, or swap which side of the crossing a peg sits on.
5. Undo is free, so test bold moves. A wild drag that fails costs nothing but a tap on Undo. The tidy route to three stars is usually found by trying the move you were afraid of.
6. Keep same-colour pegs close in your head. Each rope pulls its two pegs toward each other. If a pair ends up on opposite sides of the board, every other rope has to cross it. Shorten the long pairs first.
7. Replay for stars on a quiet board. Once you know a level's solution shape, a restart and a clean run beats par more often than a messy first try. Best-move records make the rematch satisfying.

Rope untangle game FAQ

Is Tangle Free free to play?

Yes. Tangle Free is 100% free, with all 40 levels, the Daily Knot, undo and every star included. You play it right on this page in your browser. There is no download, no sign-up and no payment.

How do you play a rope untangle game?

Press any peg and drag it to a free dot, then let go to snap it in place. Each rope joins two pegs of the same colour. Keep moving pegs until no two ropes cross and the Crossings counter reads zero. There is no timer, so you can hover a peg in the air and watch the counter before you commit.

What counts as a crossing?

A crossing is any place where two ropes block each other. The normal case is an X, where one rope passes over another. A peg resting exactly in the middle of another rope also counts, because the board is not flat until it moves. Ropes that cross glow brighter, and a white marker sits on each crossing point.

How do stars and par work?

Every level is built from a clear layout that is then scrambled by a recorded list of moves, and par is the length of that list. Undoing the scramble always solves the level, so a solution always exists. Finish in par moves or fewer for three stars, take up to half as many again for two stars, and any other finish earns one star.

What is the Daily Knot?

The Daily Knot is one new puzzle every day, built from the date itself, so every player gets the same knot on the same day. It uses seven to ten ropes. Finish it to stamp the day, finish again tomorrow to grow your streak, and your best streak is kept even if you miss a day.

Does Tangle Free save my progress?

Yes, in your own browser. Unlocked levels, stars, best move counts, your Daily Knot streak and your sound setting all save automatically on this device. Nothing leaves your device, and there is no account to make. Come back any time and the knots are where you left them.

Last updated: November 7, 2026. Tangle Free v1.0 — the first release of our original rope untangle game, with 40 levels built to be solvable by construction, a date-seeded Daily Knot with streaks, live crossing counts while you drag, and star ratings against an honest par. An original GameOLL browser game. Found a bug? Tell us in the comments and we will fix it in the next version.