Hitori (Mini Puzzles Series #25)

Hitori is one of the classic Japanese logic puzzles that has appeared regularly in the World Puzzle Championship as well as the Indian Puzzle Championship. When I first learned this puzzle, I found its solving techniques quite different from the logic puzzles I had solved before. To understand it better, I created this easy puzzle for practice, and it eventually became the first Hitori puzzle published on Fun With Puzzles.

Later, I republished this puzzle as part of my Mini Puzzles Series so that beginners could learn and enjoy this wonderful logic puzzle. If you like puzzles that improve observation, logical reasoning, and analytical thinking, this handcrafted Hitori puzzle is a great place to start.

Rules of the Hitori puzzle

Hitori is played with a grid of squares or cells, and each cell contains a number. The object is to eliminate numbers by filling in the squares such that the remaining cells do not contain numbers that appear more than once in either a given row or column. Filled-in cells cannot be horizontally or vertically adjacent, although they can be diagonally adjacent. The remaining unfilled cells must form a single component connected horizontally and vertically.