Meowdoku Level 8: Free Online Puzzle

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

Reading Level 8's six regions

The pink cells: R3C3, R3C4, R3C5, R4C3, R4C4, R5C2, R5C3, R6C2 and R6C3 (a 9-cell patch).

Green takes R2C4, R2C5, R3C6, R4C5 and R4C6: 5 cells.

Lilac takes R5C4, R5C5, R5C6, R6C4, R6C5 and R6C6: 6 cells.

Blue? That's R3C2, R4C1, R4C2, R5C1 and R6C1. 5 cells in all.

The cream cells: R1C1, R2C3 and R3C1 (a 3-cell patch tucked into the top-left corner).

Salmon takes R1C2, R1C3, R1C4, R1C5, R1C6, R2C1, R2C2 and R2C6: 8 cells.

Pink touches salmon ×2, cream ×2, green ×10, blue ×11, lilac ×7.

Green touches salmon ×8, cream ×1, pink ×10, lilac ×5.

Lilac touches pink ×7, green ×5.

Blue touches salmon ×2, cream ×4, pink ×11.

Cream borders salmon ×9, green ×1, pink ×2, blue ×4.

Salmon touches cream ×9, green ×8, blue ×2, pink ×2.

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 8, Step by Step

The cream region is the smallest thing on the board, three cells (R1C1, R2C3, R3C1), and it cracks the puzzle. Before that, one cell can be struck at once: a cat on R1C1 would leave column 2 needing two cats, so R1C1 is out. Row 1's open cells, R1C2 to R1C6, all sit in salmon, so salmon's cat is in row 1 and R2C1, R2C2, R2C6 are gone.

Now cream. Empty R2C3 and the blue region has no legal cell left, so R2C3 must be the cat. Row 2 closes at R2C5, column 3 closes at R4C3, R5C3 and R6C3, and cream finishes with R3C1 gone.

Three pointings follow in a row. Column 1's open cells all sit inside blue, so blue's cat is in column 1 and R4C2 is the blue cell that pays for it. Column 2's open cells all sit inside pink, so pink's cat is in column 2, and R3C5 and R4C4 leave. Column 4's open cells all sit inside lilac, so lilac's cat is in column 4 and its four cells outside that column (R5C5, R5C6, R6C5, R6C6) are out.

Those three sweeps empty most of the bottom right. What stays open resolves in order: R3C6 for row 3, R4C1 for row 4, R5C4 for row 5.

Two columns remain short. Column 2 has only R6C2 open, column 5 only R1C5.

Two of the pointings did most of the work: column 2 belonged to pink, column 4 belonged to lilac, and between them they cleared nine cells without a single test. That is the cheapest kind of progress available on a board with tall, narrow regions.

The finished board reads R1C5, R2C3, R3C6, R4C1, R5C4, R6C2. One cat per row, column and region, none of them touching, diagonal contacts included. Worth noting what did not happen: after the first test, no cell on this board needed a guess, only the recognition that a unit's cells had all come to sit inside another unit.

Where Level 8 wants you to slip

Resist R5C2. It blocks R4C1, the blue region's real cat square, and a board missing that cat cannot be finished.

Hints for Level 8: Four Nudges

• Begin with the smallest region. Cream is three cells (R1C1, R2C3, R3C1), and R1C1 dies at once, because a cat there would leave column 2 needing two cats.
• That pushes everything in row 1 into salmon, so salmon's cat is in row 1 and R2C1, R2C2, R2C6 are out. Now cream: empty R2C3 and blue has no legal cell, so R2C3 is the cat.
• Three pointings follow. Column 1 belongs to blue, which costs R4C2; column 2 belongs to pink, which costs R3C5 and R4C4; column 4 belongs to lilac, which costs R5C5, R5C6, R6C5 and R6C6.
• The tail is single cells: R3C6 for row 3, R4C1 for row 4, R5C4 for row 5, then R6C2 and R1C5 for the two columns that were still short.

Answer for Level 8

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