What is Cagey?
Cagey is a cage puzzle reduced to its arithmetic core. You fill a four-by-four grid divided into bold-outlined cages, each cage displaying a target number in its corner. You use only digits 1 to 4. The defining feature is the difficulty ladder. Easy mode removes row and column uniqueness rules entirely, leaving pure arithmetic. Medium, Hard, and Expert progressively introduce KenKen-style constraints and additional operators.
How to play Cagey
- Select a track at the top of the page. Classic is unlocked by default; Challenge requires progression.
- Pick a difficulty from the row below. Daily appears first with a flame icon, followed by Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert. Daily and difficulty are independent choices.
- Tap a cell on the grid. It highlights pale blue to show your selection.
- Enter a digit from the 1-4 keypad on the right, or press backspace to clear the cell.
- Fill every cage so its cells produce the target number shown in the corner. Use Undo to reverse a move, or tap Hint if attempts remain.
Why Cagey works differently from standard cage puzzles
Most cage puzzles require full KenKen rules from the start. Cagey splits the rulebook across difficulty levels. Easy turns off row and column constraints completely, making each cage a standalone sum. Higher difficulties reintroduce uniqueness rules. With a four-by-four board and digits capped at 4, the puzzle stays small enough to solve mentally while offering a clear path to harder constraint sets.
Reading the feedback
The interface stays quiet. Tapping a cell only changes its background to pale blue. No color grading appears on the grid while you work. The clock at the top starts before you touch the board. The rule line beneath the keypad restates the active constraint for your chosen difficulty. That line is the real feedback surface. Read it before committing to a strategy.
Modes
Classic
The default track, unlocked when the board loads.
Challenge
A second track next to Classic, marked with a padlock icon.
Daily
A chip at the start of the difficulty row, marked with a flame. It runs alongside a difficulty rather than replacing one.
Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert
Four difficulty rungs. Easy explicitly removes row and column constraints according to the rule line. The game description states that uniqueness rules appear at higher levels.
Tips and strategy
Read the rule line under the keypad before starting. At Easy it confirms that row and column uniqueness is inactive, making each cage a self-contained sum with no external dependencies.
Hunt for cages whose targets sit near the limit of what digits 1 to 4 can produce. Those cages have a single valid decomposition and anchor the rest of the solution.
The Hint button displays its remaining count in the label, so you can see the cost before spending one.
Popular questions
Do digits have to be unique in a row or column?
Not at Easy. The line beneath the keypad says that level has no row or column rules, only arithmetic. According to the game description, KenKen-style uniqueness rules appear at higher difficulties.
Is every cage an addition?
No. An Easy board may show a plus target in every cage, but the game description says it uses addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division.