Futoshiki (PuzzleMadness)

About Futoshiki (PuzzleMadness)

Futoshiki is a Latin-square puzzle with inequality signs. On a 7x7 grid every row and column holds 1 to 7 once, and on a 5x5 grid 1 to 5. Between some pairs of neighbouring squares there is a greater-than or less-than sign, and the numbers must obey it. Harder grids give fewer starting numbers and fewer signs.

The daily page opens today's puzzle on its own, and its title carries the date (on 3 October 2026 it read "Daily Medium Futoshiki Puzzle for Saturday 3rd October 2026 (Medium)"). There is a separate dated puzzle for each difficulty: Easy, Medium, Hard and Mixed. Past days stay in the archive, so a missed puzzle can be played later, and there is a print version and an image download of the grid. PuzzleMadness does not publish solutions: the site tells you when you have finished a grid correctly or made a mistake. Each completed puzzle adds to your total on the Futoshiki monthly and all-time leaderboards, where only your best score on any one puzzle counts.

Chains of signs are the best starting point: a square at the bottom of a chain of three less-than signs can only hold a small number, and the top of the chain a large one. A square smaller than a given 2 must be 1. After that, row and column elimination finishes most grids.

PuzzleMadness is a British puzzle site with dozens of daily puzzle types in the browser, from many sudoku variants to logic grids such as Nurikabe, Hashi and Slitherlink. It is free to play and carries ads. A free account keeps track of the puzzles you have finished and puts your name on the leaderboards, and the badges next to usernames mark how many puzzles a player has completed.

How to play Futoshiki (PuzzleMadness)

1. Open the day's Futoshiki page and choose Easy, Medium, Hard or Mixed.
2. Look for signs next to given numbers and chains of signs; they limit the values sharply.
3. Fill each row and column with every number once.
4. Make every sign true; the site tells you when the grid is complete.

Screenshots

Tips

• The largest number can never sit on the small side of a sign, and 1 can never sit on the large side.
• Follow chains: in a < b < c, a is at most n-2 on an n-sized grid.
• Pencil in candidates and trim them as signs and lines fill up.

Questions