Logic

Daily Heyawake

Shade cells room by room so the counts fit and the white cells stay in one piece.

Every day: One Special Daily Heyawake a day, the same grid for every player and labelled with its date. New puzzle: Midnight UTC, by the date on the site's own clock.

Play Daily Heyawake on puzzle-heyawake.com

Special Daily HeyawakeAll sizes on puzzle-heyawake.comPuzzleGym on the App StorePuzzleGym on Google Play

A Heyawake grid divided into rooms with number clues, from puzzle-heyawake.com

Heyawake is a shading puzzle played on a grid split into rooms, some of which say how many black cells they hold. Puzzle-heyawake.com has a dated Special Daily Heyawake that everyone gets that day, plus Easy to Hard grids from 6x6 to 20x20 and weekly and monthly specials.

About Daily Heyawake

Heyawake is a shading puzzle. The grid is divided into rooms of different shapes, and a number in a room says exactly how many of its cells are black. Black cells may not touch side by side, all white cells must link up into one area, and a straight line of white cells may not run through more than two rooms. That last rule is what sets Heyawake apart from other shading puzzles: long white corridors are forbidden, so black cells have to break them up.

The Special Daily Heyawake on puzzle-heyawake.com is the same puzzle for every player on a given date, and the date is printed beneath the grid. On 2 October 2026 it was 25 by 25 cells, larger than any of the standard sizes. Away from the daily there are Easy, Normal and Hard grids from 6x6 up to 20x20 whenever you want one, a weekly and a monthly special, and a Hall of Fame for the standard sizes. The site is free with ads, patrons can turn the ads off, and its puzzles are also in the PuzzleGym app for iPhone and Android. Patrons of the site can go back through the last 30 daily puzzles; everyone else plays the current day's.

Heyawake suits players who already know Nurikabe or Hitori and want a shading puzzle with an unusual extra rule. Because the daily grid is big, it works well as a puzzle to pick up and put down over a day.

How to play Daily Heyawake

  1. Open the Special Daily Heyawake on puzzle-heyawake.com and check the date under the grid.
  2. Shade cells black: a room with a number must hold exactly that many black cells; rooms without a number can hold any count.
  3. Never let two black cells touch along a side.
  4. Keep all white cells connected into one group, passing through sides rather than corners.
  5. Break up any straight row or column of white cells that would cross more than two rooms by shading one of its cells.
  6. When the grid follows every rule, submit it to see your time.

Tips

  • Mark cells next to every black cell as white straight away; that is the rule you can apply most often.
  • Check the walls between rooms: a white line that crosses two room borders must have a black cell somewhere along it, which often fixes a cell next to a border.
  • Before shading a cell, check that it does not seal off a white cell or a pocket of white cells from the rest of the grid.
  • Small rooms with high numbers are a good place to start; a 2x2 room with a 2 can only take a diagonal pair.

Questions

Is there a new Heyawake every day?

Once a day, at midnight UTC, by the date on the site's own clock.

How big is the daily Heyawake?

It can be larger than the standard sizes; the puzzle for 2 October 2026 was 25 by 25.

What does the rule about two rooms mean?

Any straight run of white cells, across or down, may pass through at most two rooms. If it would enter a third room, one of its cells must be black.

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