How to play
Every puzzle is a sudoku, played with letters instead of numbers. Each grid uses a fixed alphabet of nine letters, printed above the grid. As in any sudoku, every row, every column, and every 3×3 box must contain all nine letters exactly once.
But the letters you are given are insufficient to find the solution by following sudoku techniques alone, and you’ll have to discover new techniques based on the word list. Every word printed beneath the grid appears exactly once in the finished puzzle, reading in a straight line — across, down, or diagonally, in any of the eight directions — just as in a word search. Every row, every column, and every box contains at least one letter of a hidden word, and all nine letters turn up somewhere in the list.
So you solve on two fronts at once. Ordinary sudoku logic narrows the letters a cell can hold. When that logic stalls, and on these puzzles it will, turn to the words. Ask where a word could possibly fit: its letters, in order, along some line. When there is only one place it can go, dropping it in forces letters that sudoku alone could never settle.
You are finished when every row, column, and box holds all nine letters, and every listed word sits in the grid exactly once.
Playing here
- Tap or click a cell, then tap a letter (or type one) to fill it. Tap the same letter again, or press Backspace, to clear it.
- Toggle Pencil marks to jot the candidates for a cell.
- The board flags a letter that repeats in a row, column, or box, so you can catch mistakes early.
- As you complete a hidden word, it gets crossed off the list.
- Stuck? Hint reveals the next logical move and explains it.
Working from a printed book and stuck on one? Every puzzle has a short code printed in its bottom-left corner — enter it on the Stuck? page for a full step-by-step walkthrough.