About Grid Network
Grid Network is a city-planning puzzle in miniature. A power plant sits somewhere on a 3D landscape of grass, water, hills and rock, and a handful of houses and factories need connecting to it. Every tile you route a cable through costs something, and the terrain is what decides how much.
It is a friendly disguise for a genuinely deep problem — the same shortest-path and shared-infrastructure trade-offs that real utility planners face. The scoring compares your total against the mathematically cheapest network, which is computed with a proper shortest-path search rather than a rough estimate.
The rules in full
- Every building must end up connected to the power plant by an unbroken cable run.
- Cables are laid tile by tile. Each terrain type has its own cost — grass is cheap, water and rock are expensive.
- Cables may share tiles. A shared run is paid for once, which is where most of the savings come from.
- Each connection is drawn as its own coloured cable, and cables sharing a tile edge spread into parallel lanes so you can always see which line goes where.
- Undo steps back one tile at a time; clear wipes the board.
- Your score is your total cost measured against the optimal network for that level.
A worked example
Picture a plant on the left, two houses on the right, and a river of water tiles running down the middle. Water costs several times what grass costs.
The naive solution runs a separate cable from the plant to each house, and each one crosses the river independently. That means paying the river crossing twice.
The cheap solution runs a single trunk line from the plant to one crossing point, over the river once, and then branches on the far bank to reach both houses. Even if the trunk is longer in tiles, it is dramatically cheaper because the expensive tiles are shared.
This is the whole game in one picture: find the expensive obstacle, cross it as few times as possible, and branch on the far side.
Strategy tips
Find the chokepoint first — Every level has one stretch of expensive terrain that separates the plant from most of the buildings. Decide where you cross it before you lay a single tile.
Build trunks, not spokes — Separate cables from the plant to each building is almost always the most expensive layout possible. Share as much of the route as you can.
Detours are often cheaper — A route that is four tiles longer but avoids two rock tiles usually wins. Count cost, not distance.
Route the far building first — The longest connection determines where the trunk should go. Build it first, then hang the nearer buildings off it.
Undo is free — There is no penalty for experimenting. Lay a candidate trunk, look at the total, undo, and try the other crossing.
Frequently asked questions
- How is the optimal cost calculated?
- The level's cheapest network is computed with a shortest-path search over the terrain costs, so the target you are scored against is genuinely optimal, not a guess.
- Can cables cross each other?
- Yes, and sharing tiles is encouraged — a shared tile is only paid for once. Overlapping runs are drawn in parallel lanes so the picture stays readable.
- Is the 3D view required?
- The board is rendered in 3D because terrain height carries information, but every interaction is a simple tap or click on a tile.
- When is Grid Network the featured game?
- It takes the Game of the Month slot every third month, and stays playable as practice in between.
Want to go deeper? Read the full Grid Network strategy guide.