Light Up (PuzzleMadness)

About Light Up (PuzzleMadness)

Light Up, also called Akari, is played on a grid of white squares and black walls. A bulb lights its whole row and column until it reaches a wall or the edge. You place bulbs until every white square is lit, without any bulb shining on another. Some walls carry a number from 0 to 4, the number of bulbs directly next to them.

The daily page opens today's puzzle on its own, and its title carries the date (on 3 October 2026 it read "Daily Medium Light Up Puzzle for Saturday 3rd October 2026"). There is a separate dated puzzle for each size: Small, Medium, Large 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 Light Up monthly and all-time leaderboards, where only your best score on any one puzzle counts.

Start with 0s (no bulb next to them) and 4s (bulbs on all four sides). A 3 against an edge also fills every open side. After that, look for white squares that only one possible bulb position can light.

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 Light Up (PuzzleMadness)

1. Open the day's Light Up page and choose Small, Medium, Large or Mixed.
2. Mark the squares around 0 walls as empty and put bulbs around 4 walls.
3. Place bulbs to satisfy numbered walls, never in sight of another bulb.
4. Light every white square; the site marks the grid complete.

Screenshots

Tips

• A wall's number counts only the four squares directly next to it, not diagonals.
• A white square that can only be lit from one place forces a bulb there.
• Mark squares that cannot hold a bulb with an X to keep track.

Questions