Diwali games to play online

Deepmala, the diya chain-reaction puzzle

Deepmala is a cozy logic puzzle about lighting every clay diya on a rangoli courtyard with as few matches as possible. Turn a lamp to aim its spouts, then strike a match: a flame leaps along each spout to the next lamp, which lights and fires its own flames in turn. Clay pots of marigolds stop a flame, brass plates bend it round a corner, and lamps with a dotted ring cannot be turned.

Every board is generated from a seed with a provable par, so the fewest matches shown is always achievable. The Daily Deepmala is five boards shared by everyone each evening, with one scored attempt a day. Endless Evening is a longer night of growing boards that runs until the matchbox is empty or dawn breaks after fifty boards.

Its festive layer, with toran and rangoli during the festival week, is cosmetic and can be switched off. The puzzle itself is the same every day of the year.

• Daily - five boards a day, from five by five up to seven by seven, the same for everyone.
• Endless Evening - boards grow from five by five up to eight by eight.
• Par - the fewest matches a board can be lit with, one per courtyard.
• Offline - keeps working once the page has loaded.

When the Chroma Sort Diwali theme is on

The theme runs from 4 to 15 November 2026, the days around Diwali on 8 November. It goes by the date on your own device, so it starts and ends at local midnight wherever you are.

It is on by default for those days. On the Chroma Sort home screen there is a "Diwali lamps" button next to Color Blind Mode; tap it to turn the lamps off and the normal look comes straight back. The choice is remembered on that device. Outside those dates neither the theme nor the button appears.

• Dates - 4 to 15 November 2026, by your local date.
• Default - on.
• Switch - the "Diwali lamps" button beside Color Blind Mode on the Chroma Sort home screen.
• Outside the dates - the normal look, and no button.

What the lamps-and-rangoli theme looks like

Each ball is drawn as a diya: a clay base with a dotted gold rim and a small flame at the wick. The ball keeps its own colour, which is the whole puzzle, and the lamp is drawn around it. The lamp covers roughly a third of each ball, but the colours stay, and Color Blind Mode markers stay visible on top.

Behind the tubes sits a soft rangoli of rings and petals, with warm gold edges on the tubes and a gold glow on the one you have selected. Finishing a puzzle brings warm gold sparkles rather than the usual coloured confetti.

Color Blind Mode still works with the lamps on: every ball keeps its shape marker, drawn on top of the lamp. If your device is set to reduce motion, the flames do not flicker and the sparkles are skipped.

The puzzle underneath: Chroma Sort

Chroma Sort is a ball-sort puzzle. Tap a tube to lift its top ball and tap another to drop it; a ball can only go onto the same colour or into an empty tube. Same-coloured balls on top move together in one go. Sort every tube down to a single colour and the puzzle is solved.

There are three daily puzzles, the same for every player on a given date: Easy with 4 colours in 6 tubes, Medium with 6 colours in 8 tubes, and Hard with 8 colours in 11 tubes. Undo is free and unlimited, you get 3 hints a day, and an Extra Tube is earned by clearing five Endless levels in a row without hints or an Extra Tube. Endless Mode carries on past the dailies, adding colours as the levels climb.

The theme is cosmetic and nothing else. The daily puzzles, the scoring, the leaderboard and the share card are identical with the lamps on or off, so a Diwali score sits on the same board as any other day.

• Easy - 4 colours, 6 tubes.
• Medium - 6 colours, 8 tubes.
• Hard - 8 colours, 11 tubes.
• Undo - free and unlimited. Hints - 3 a day.

Other games for the festive days, labelled as adjacent

None of these is a Diwali game, and we are not going to dress them up as one. They are here because they suit the days around it.

Doodle Dash is a drawing-and-guessing party game with private rooms you join by code, up to 30 players a room, and Classic, Speed Draw and Sabotage modes - a fit for a house full of family. Cricket Blitz is a five-over T20 batting game built around six Indian city franchises. Bir Glider is a one-tap paragliding game set over Bir Billing in Himachal Pradesh, with a zen mode for flying without goals.

Doodle Dash and Cricket Blitz need an internet connection; Deepmala, Chroma Sort and Bir Glider keep working offline once they have loaded.

Frequently asked questions

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