Daily Hitori

About Daily Hitori

Hitori works backwards compared with most number puzzles: the grid is already full, and you remove numbers rather than add them. You shade cells so that no number is left unshaded more than once in any row or column. Shaded cells may not touch along an edge, and the unshaded cells must form a single group you can travel through by moving up, down, left and right.

Puzzle-hitori.com has Easy, Normal and Hard grids from 5x5 to 20x20, plus Special Daily, Weekly and Monthly puzzles. The daily is one dated grid for everyone, larger than the regular sizes; on 2 October 2026 it was 25 by 25. Options can highlight the current row and column and place white markers around each shaded cell automatically. The site shows ads; patrons can remove them and go back through the last 30 dailies.

Hitori suits sudoku players who want a change of direction, since it uses the same no-repeats idea in rows and columns, and players who like the connection rule in puzzles such as Nurikabe or LITS.

How to play Daily Hitori

1. Open puzzle-hitori.com and choose Special Daily Hitori.
2. Look for numbers that repeat in a row or column: all but one copy in each line will need shading.
3. Click a cell to shade it, and mark cells you know must stay white so you do not shade them later.
4. Never shade two cells next to each other, and keep all white cells connected in one group.
5. When no row or column shows a number twice, press Done (or Enter) to check the grid.

Tips

• In a pattern like 4 7 4, the middle 7 stays white: whichever 4 is shaded, the 7 sits between them as a buffer.
• Every cell next to a shaded cell must be white, so mark the four neighbours as soon as you shade one.
• With three of the same number in a row, such as 5 5 5, the middle one stays white and both ends are shaded.
• Check the connection rule near the edges: a shaded cell that would cut off a corner of white cells is not allowed.

Questions