Daily
A new daily Hitori every day, plus 600 unlimited puzzles from 5x5 to 15x15. The classic Nikoli shading puzzle — free, in your browser, no signup.
Shade cells so that no number appears more than once among the unshaded cells of any row or column — duplicates are fine among shaded cells.
Shaded cells may never touch horizontally or vertically. Diagonal contact is allowed.
All unshaded cells must remain connected as a single region — a shade that walls off part of the board is illegal.
The board is solved when all three rules hold at once. Every puzzle has exactly one solution, and you can always reach it by logic alone.
Hitori is the classic Japanese shading puzzle from Nikoli, the Tokyo publisher behind Sudoku's rise. It debuted in 1990 as puzzle #29 in Puzzle Communication Nikoli, and its full name — "Hitori ni shite kure" — translates roughly to "leave me alone", which is exactly what you do to the duplicate numbers: shade them out until every number that remains stands alone in its row and column.
The rules take a minute to learn. Shade cells so that no number repeats among the unshaded cells of any row or column, never shade two cells that touch side-by-side, and keep all the unshaded cells connected as one region. Those three constraints interlock into surprisingly deep logic: a 5×5 board is a two-minute warm-up, while a 15×15 board is a proper sit-down solve.
Play Hitori gives the puzzle the daily-game treatment. Every day there is one shared 5×5 board — the same for every player — with a streak to protect and a result you can share. Around the daily sits an unlimited collection of 600 puzzles across five sizes and three difficulty grades, every one of them machine-verified to have exactly one solution reachable by pure deduction. If a puzzle here ever seems to need a guess, it doesn't — there is always a logical next step, and the how-to-play guide teaches the full technique ladder, from sandwiches and triples up to connectivity arguments.
Everything runs free in your browser on phone, tablet, or desktop — no account, no downloads. Your progress, streaks, and best times are saved on your device.
A new daily Hitori
One fresh 5×5 board every day — the same puzzle for everyone, with a streak to keep.
600 unlimited puzzles
Five sizes from 5×5 to 15×15, each in easy, medium, and hard.
Every puzzle verified
One solution per board, reachable by pure logic — no guessing required, ever.
Smart assists
Auto-circle neighbors, undo, and live error highlighting for duplicates, illegal shades, and cut-off cells.
Permanent archive
Every past daily stays playable at its own URL.
Shareable links
Every board has a permanent URL you can send to anyone.