How to play Delivery Route
You run a little delivery van in a busy grid city. Parcels are waiting for several houses, the tank only holds so much fuel, and some streets are closed for roadworks. Your job is to draw the delivery route: one continuous trip that leaves the depot, passes every house and comes home again. Finding a route is easy. Finding the shortest route is the real puzzle.
- Press on the blue depot and drag your finger or mouse along the streets. The route snaps to the roads.
- Drive past every house with a yellow parcel. A green tick shows it has been visited.
- Watch the fuel gauge: every block uses one unit. Closed streets (red and white barriers) and parks cannot be crossed.
- Bring the van back to the depot. When every house is on the route, the van drives off and delivers.
- Compare your route length with the best possible one and try again for three stars.
Route planning tips
- Think in loops. The shortest round trip rarely doubles back on itself. Look for one big loop that sweeps past all the houses, then tweak it.
- Visit the far house first, or last. The house that is furthest from the depot usually decides the shape of the route. Plan the trip there and back so that the other houses lie along the way.
- Grid streets have many equal routes. In a grid, any staircase path between two points has the same length. Use that freedom to pass extra houses at no extra cost.
- Spot the dead ends. Roadworks and parks can turn a corner into a cul-de-sac. A house in a dead end costs you the drive in and the drive out again, so plan for it.
- Cut back, don’t restart. Press on any earlier point of your route to cut it back there and carry on drawing. It is much quicker than starting from scratch.
A tiny travelling salesman problem
Delivery Route is based on one of the most famous puzzles in mathematics, the travelling salesman problem: given a list of places, what is the shortest round trip that visits each one exactly once? It sounds simple, but the number of possible orders explodes as you add stops. With five houses there are 120 orders to try; with ten there are more than three million. People are surprisingly good at spotting short routes by eye, which is exactly the skill this game trains. Every level’s three-star target was found by a computer checking every possible order of the houses, so a three-star route really is the best there is.
The sixteen levels start in a tiny neighbourhood with two houses and plenty of fuel. Later cities are bigger, with up to nine deliveries, several parks, more roadworks and only a couple of blocks of fuel to spare.
Reading the map
Every block in the city is one unit of fuel, and the fuel number next to the gauge counts down as you draw. Houses waiting for a parcel carry a small yellow box; once your route passes them the box changes to a green tick. Red and white barriers mark closed streets and green parks cannot be driven through at all, so a house that looks close may need a long detour. Before you start drawing, trace a few possible loops with your eyes and count the blocks. It is often quicker than trial and error, and it is the best way to find the three-star route.
More path drawing games
Like planning routes? In Parking Path you draw the route for every car in a car park and they all drive at once. If you prefer a physics brain teaser, try Draw Puzzle, or land planes in the real-time Airport Control.
Delivery Route FAQ
How do you play Delivery Route?
Press on the blue depot and drag along the streets. Your route snaps to the road grid. Pass every house with a parcel and bring the van back to the depot. As soon as the route is complete the van sets off and delivers everything.
What does the fuel gauge mean?
Every block the van drives uses one unit of fuel. The gauge shows how many blocks you have left. If you run out before the route is complete, undo part of it and look for a shorter way round.
How do I undo part of my route?
Press on any point of your route to cut it back to that point, then continue drawing from there. Driving back along a street you already used is allowed, it just costs fuel. The ↻ button clears the whole level.
How are stars calculated?
Each level has a known shortest route, computed by checking every possible delivery order. Matching it earns three stars. A route only a little longer earns two stars, and any route that delivers every parcel within the fuel earns one.
Is this the travelling salesman problem?
Yes, Delivery Route is a small, playable version of it: find the shortest round trip that visits every stop. Real delivery companies solve much bigger versions of the same puzzle with computers every day.
Does it work on mobile and is progress saved?
Yes. Draw with your finger on a phone or tablet or with a mouse on a computer. Unlocked levels and your stars are saved in your browser on this device, and the game is free with no download.