Rush Hour is a sliding block puzzle invented by Nob Yoshigahara in the 1970s. It was first sold in the United States in 1996. It is now being manufactured by ThinkFun (formerly Binary Arts).

ThinkFun now sells Rush Hour spin-offs Rush Hour Jr., Safari Rush Hour, Railroad Rush Hour, Rush Hour Brain Fitness and Rush Hour Shift, with puzzles by Scott Kim.

Description

The board is a 6x6 grid with grooves in the tiles to allow cars to slide, card tray to hold the cards, current active card holder and an exit hole. The game comes with 16 vehicles (12 cars, 4 trucks), each colored differently, and 40 puzzle cards. Cars and trucks are both one square wide, but cars are two squares long and trucks are three squares long. Vehicles can only be moved along a straight line on the grid; rotation is forbidden. Puzzle cards, each with a level number that indicates the difficulty of the challenge, show the starting positions of cars and trucks. Not all cars and trucks are used in all challenges.

Objective

The goal of the game is to get only the red car out through the exit of the board by moving the other vehicles out of its way. However, the cars and trucks (set up before play, according to a puzzle card) obstruct the path which makes the puzzle harder.