Meowdoku Level 1: Free Online Puzzle

A cat in every region, row and column; none touching, corners included. Strategy guide.

Reading Level 1's six regions

Pink takes R4C1, R5C1, R6C1, R6C2 and R6C3: 5 cells.

Salmon? That's R1C5, R1C6 and R2C6. 3 cells in all.

Lilac takes R3C2, R4C2, R4C4, R5C2, R5C3, R5C4 and R6C4 (7 cells).

Blue takes R3C6 and R4C6: 2 cells.

Green = a 14-cell patch, cells R1C2, R1C4, R2C2, R2C4, R2C5, R3C3, R3C4, R3C5, R4C3, R4C5, R5C5, R5C6, R6C5 and R6C6.

Cream takes R1C1, R1C3, R2C1, R2C3 and R3C1: 5 cells tucked into the top-left corner.

Pink touches cream ×1, lilac ×12.

Salmon touches green ×6, blue ×1.

Lilac meets cream ×4, green ×19, pink ×12.

Blue touches green ×7, salmon ×1.

Green borders cream ×15, salmon ×6, lilac ×19, blue ×7.

Cream touches green ×15, lilac ×4, pink ×1.

Every touch above is a live constraint: a cat on one side of a border rules the touching cells on the other side out, corners included.

How to Solve Level 1, Step by Step

Two regions set this board up. Blue is only two cells deep, R3C6 and R4C6, and both sit in column 6, so column 6's cat is one of that pair, and R1C6, R2C6, R5C6 and R6C6 are gone. Salmon loses two of its three cells to that single fact, leaving R1C5 as the board's first cat, with row 1 and column 5 closing behind it.

Which half of blue? Empty R4C6 and follow the chain: it ends with column 1 needing two cats, which cannot be. So R4C6 holds the blue cat, and row 4 empties. R4C1, R4C2, R4C3 and R4C4 are all out.

Cream then handles the middle band. A cat on R2C2 would leave cream with no legal cell at all, so it goes. Row 2's remaining cells are R2C1 and R2C3, both cream, so cream's cat belongs to row 2 and R3C1 dies.

Between those two, empty R2C1 and row 3 starves. R2C1 takes the cream cat, R2C3 drops out, and column 1 closes with R5C1 and R6C1.

Row 5's open cells, R5C2 to R5C4, all sit inside lilac, so lilac's cat is in row 5 and R6C4 is out. Column 2 then has a single candidate left: R6C2, because emptying it would strip column 2 of every legal cell.

Look at what those two blue cells bought: four cells in column 6, two more out of salmon, and then all of row 4 once the blue cat was pinned. On a board this size, the smallest region is nearly always the cheapest place to start.

The last two come from counting. R5C4 is the only open cell of row 5, R3C3 the only one in column 3. Read the set back (R1C5, R2C1, R3C3, R4C6, R5C4, R6C2), and every row, column and region carries one cat, none of them touching, corners included. The board is proven unique, so any legal finish lands here.

Where Level 1 wants you to slip

R2C5 reads as free space but isn't: drop a cat there and R1C5, where the salmon region cat must live, is dead on arrival.

Hints for Level 1: Four Nudges

• Start at the right edge. Blue holds only R3C6 and R4C6, and both sit in column 6: the column's cat is one of that pair, and R1C6, R2C6, R5C6 and R6C6 are dead before you place anything.
• That same fact breaks salmon: its three cells are R1C5, R1C6 and R2C6, and two of them are in column 6. R1C5 is the only one left, so it takes the cat, and row 1 plus column 5 close behind it.
• Which half of blue? Empty R4C6 and follow the chain: column 1 ends up needing two cats. So R4C6 is the blue cat and row 4 empties. Cream then shifts into row 2, which kills R3C1.
• The tail is counting. R2C2 fails because cream would be left with no cell, R2C1 must be the cream cat, R6C2 must close column 2, and then R5C4 and R3C3 are the last open cells of row 5 and column 3.

Answer for Level 1

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