Play Skewb Online

Turning the Skewb: drag, click, keys and move buttons

A drag turns whichever half of the puzzle moves most like your pointer, so a short, clear stroke across one sticker is enough. A click needs no direction: it turns the half around the corner nearest the sticker you hit. The top-front-right corner is the exception. WCA notation has no letter for it, so a click on one of its triangles turns the opposite half instead. On a phone a tap always turns one way; for the reverse, drag or use the move buttons. Undo or Backspace takes a turn back.

What one Skewb turn does: half the puzzle, a third of a revolution

Four cuts run through the middle of a Skewb, each at right angles to a line joining two opposite corners. A turn swings one of the resulting halves around its corner by 120 degrees, moving four corners and three centers, fifteen of the thirty stickers, and the puzzle is a cube again when the turn ends. Pressing a letter three times brings everything back, and pressing it twice equals one turn the other way:

Each letter belongs to a corner position rather than to a piece. Seen on a solved puzzle with white on top and green toward you, R pivots on the yellow, red and blue corner, L on the yellow, orange and green one, U on the white, orange and blue one, and B on the yellow, orange and blue one. The white, green and red corner at the top front right is the one none of them moves, which makes it a handy landmark when the view has swung round.

Random-state scrambles in the Skewb simulator

Press Scramble and the puzzle jumps straight to a mixed position, without animating any turns. The scramble is made in your browser by cubing.js, for the WCA Skewb event: a random-state scramble, where every reachable position is equally likely, which is how official Skewb competitions are scrambled. The moves are not listed, so the history starts empty.

Want a particular scramble, say one you had at a competition? Add ?alg= and the moves to this page’s address, and the Skewb opens mixed by exactly that sequence, written in the same R, L, U and B letters.

Counting moves while you play Skewb online

Under the puzzle, Moves counts your turns and the history spells each one out in the same four letters, with a prime for the reverse. Reset returns to a solved Skewb and clears the list, and so does a new scramble. When a scrambled Skewb has every face in one color again, in any orientation, a line reads “Solved in 23 moves!” with your own count. There is no clock on this page, so the move count is your score. No position needs more than 11 moves, which gives you a target to chase.

Skewb, 2x2 or Pyraminx: which to learn first

All three are small puzzles that beginners often pick up after, or even before, the 3x3. The 2x2 turns like a cube, so it teaches the moves you will use on bigger cubes; its beginner method has three stages. The Pyraminx is the quickest to learn: its tips are free moves, and a first solve needs just three short sequences. The Skewb sits between them. It has about as many positions as a 2x2, yet every turn pivots on a corner, so the first hour is spent learning how a single turn moves pieces.

If you already know a cube, start with the Skewb for the novelty. If you have never solved anything, start with the 2x2 Rubik’s cube online or Pyraminx online, then come back here.

Send your virtual Skewb to the Skewb solver

Solve this state opens the Skewb solver with your current position already painted, so there is nothing to enter by hand. Press Solve there for a short solution to replay in 3D, step by step, and use Play with this puzzle to bring the position back here. To share a position, send it to the solver and use its Copy share link.