Easy Hitori
Easy Hitori puzzles are 5×5. Of two equal numbers side by side one is shaded, a number between two twins stays, and every cell beside a shaded one is kept.
Easy puzzles need at least one of these techniques, and may use any easier one:
- Beside a shaded cell
- Shaded cells never touch side by side, so the cells around this one stay unshaded.
- Same number, same line
- This number stays unshaded, so the same number elsewhere in its row or column is shaded.
- Nothing to repeat
- No other cell can keep this number in its row or column, so it never needs shading.
- Between twins
- One of the two equal numbers on either side is shaded, so the cell between them is not.
- Twin pair
- Of two equal numbers side by side, exactly one stays. Every other copy in that line is shaded.
How to play
Hitori is a logic puzzle on a grid filled with numbers. Shade some cells so that no number appears twice in any row or column. Shaded cells may never touch side by side, and all the unshaded cells must stay connected in one group.
Every Hitori here has exactly one solution and can be solved by logic alone. The grid grows from 5×5 at Easy to 9×9 at Expert, and the level is set by the hardest technique the puzzle needs.
- No number repeats among the unshaded cells of a row or column.
- Shaded cells never touch side by side (diagonally is fine).
- All unshaded cells form one connected group.
Playing on this site
- Tap a cell to shade it, tap again to circle it as kept, and once more to clear it.
- Drag across cells to paint the same mark along the way; the whole drag is one undo step.
- With a keyboard, use the arrow keys to move and Space to cycle the mark.
- Circles are only a helper: the puzzle is solved as soon as the shading is right.
- Hint points out wrong cells first, then names the next technique and highlights where it applies.
- Your puzzle is saved in this browser, so you can come back to it later.