Par: Daily Number Puzzle

Combine two tiles at a time to hit the target in the fewest possible moves.
Par app icon — original uncropped 1024 × 1024 PNG.

Inspiration

Daily puzzles give people a small ritual they can share. Par brings that to arithmetic, with a score that means something precise: the fewest moves needed to reach the target. The idea of par comes from golf; here, every board's par is mathematically proven.

What it does

Every day, everyone gets the same six number tiles. Combine two tiles at a time using addition, subtraction, multiplication or exact division. Easy, Regular and Tricky each have a different target and a solver-proven par. Match par and you have found a shortest possible solution.

Clock mode adds a fourth target, hidden until you start, with one attempt and a timer. Game Center provides a Daily Clock leaderboard and an all-time par-solves leaderboard.

The daily ritual includes streaks, streak freezes, a free daily hint, unlimited undo, an archive of past boards and optional local reminders. Hints are calculated from the tiles actually on your board, so they still help after you take a different route. Share cards show your scores, clock time and streak without revealing your moves. Short challenge codes let friends play the same board without creating an account.

Par supports English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Japanese. Its first public iOS release launched on 30 September 2026.

How it was built

Par is built with Flutter and Dart. Its exact arithmetic engine represents expressions and uses a complete subset solver to verify every daily target and its minimum move count. A reproducible generator creates a year of boards with calibrated difficulty. Progress lives locally, and friend challenge codes carry the board itself.

RevenueCat manages the Pro entitlement, offerings, purchases, restoration, paywall and Customer Center. Offering metadata also controls ad placement, frequency and the free hint allowance without requiring an app update. AdMob serves the ads; RevenueCat supplies the configuration and paid-access decisions.

Monetization that fits the game

The daily puzzle remains free. Par Pro removes ads and adds a hint on every board and a weekly streak freeze, with monthly, annual and lifetime options. The annual product is configured with a one-week free trial. At launch, the Pro in-app purchases were still awaiting App Store review.

Ads never interrupt today's board or cover the moment after a solve. Interstitials belong at archive entry, and rewarded ads let free players choose to rescue a streak. This protects the central daily challenge and its sharing moment.

Challenges and lessons

Making difficulty and scoring trustworthy was the central engineering challenge. A reachable target is not enough: every claimed par must be proven, and hints must work from a player's current state. Separating generation, exact arithmetic and live-board solving made those promises testable.

The other challenge was protecting the pace of a quiet puzzle while adding monetization and social features. Unlimited undo, optional reminders, spoiler-free sharing and ads outside the daily board all support that goal.

What is next

Complete the Pro store review, learn from the first players, and measure whether daily share cards and direct friend challenges bring people back. Par is already playable on the App Store, with a companion website at dailypar.app.