Six numbers. One target.
About SumGoal
SumGoal is a free arithmetic target game built around a wonderfully simple challenge: choose six numbers, combine them using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and try to reach the target by finding the cleanest route you can.
The rules are easy to learn, but the puzzle quickly becomes one of pattern recognition and ingenuity. A multiplication might create the number you need, a small tile can bridge the final gap, or the most elegant solution may use only a few of the available numbers.
From Des chiffres et des lettres to the Countdown numbers round
This style of number puzzle has a long television history. In France, producer Armand Jammot created Le Mot le plus long in 1965. The format evolved in 1972 into Des chiffres et des lettres — “Numbers and Letters” — combining a word game with the arithmetic challenge Le compte est bon, in which contestants combine a selection of numbers to reach a target.
A decade later the idea crossed the Channel. Countdown became the first programme broadcast on Channel 4 when the station launched in November 1982. Its mix of word games, the famous Countdown numbers round and the final conundrum helped turn a deceptively simple mental-arithmetic challenge into a familiar part of British popular culture.
The format travelled further still. In Australia, SBS launched Letters and Numbers in 2010, adapting the French format for Australian audiences and combining word and numerical challenges against the clock. The show later returned in celebrity form, continuing the same tradition of quick thinking with letters and numbers.
Why this kind of number puzzle appeals to so many people
The appeal is not difficult mathematics. The operations are familiar; the challenge lies in spotting relationships between numbers and deciding which route is worth pursuing. There may be many legal calculations that get close to the target, but the satisfying solution is often surprisingly short.
That makes the format work equally well as a quick mental-arithmetic game, a classroom-style number puzzle, or something to play competitively against the clock. It rewards estimation, flexible thinking and the ability to see useful intermediate values before they are obvious.
SumGoal's take on the idea
SumGoal focuses on the arithmetic side of that tradition and gives it its own format: fast rounds, visible workings, undo and rewind controls, scoring for near misses as well as exact answers, shareable challenges, and a solver that can reveal a simple route after you have had your attempt.
You can play without creating an account. Session statistics stay with the current page and reset when you reload or close it.
Whether you arrived looking for a game similar in spirit to the Countdown numbers round, remember Des chiffres et des lettres, have watched Australia's Letters and Numbers, or simply enjoy arithmetic and target-number puzzles, SumGoal is designed to give the numbers their own stage.
Follow SumGoal
Follow SumGoal for new puzzles, solving ideas, worked routes and site updates.