KAKURO
What is Kakuro?
Kakuro is the most popular puzzle in Japan, where hundreds of dedicated puzzle masters devote their lives to working out ways to reduce your productivity down to zero. It's absorbing and fiendishly addictive and we guarantee - if you liked Sudoku, you're going to love Kakuro!
Kakuro is sometimes described as a 'Number crossword'. This is an example puzzle:
An example Kakuro puzzle
The puzzle is made up of blocks of white squares, running either in a row or a column. For example, along the top of the puzzle is a block of three white squares.
To solve the puzzle, you have to fill in all the white squares, following these three rules:
- You can only use the numbers 1 to 9
- The numbers in each block must add up to the Target (the small number at the left of each row and the top of each column).
- Each block can only contain each number once.
...And that's all there is. How hard can it be? The great thing about Kakuro is that, like Sudoku, there's only one solution, and you never have to guess (though you might be tempted!).
And once you've mastered some of the Kakuro puzzles on this website, you can hold your head up with the pride that comes with knowing you can solve puzzles that are just as fiendish as Sudoku, and you can count!
How to Solve Kakuro Puzzles
To help start you off, we've written a tutorial on solving your very first Kakuro puzzle. Have a go, and once you feel ready, give the sample puzzles a try. And if you're a member, you get free daily Kakuro puzzles every day!
Solving Kakuro #1 - an Introduction
Solving Kakuro #2 - Kakuro Blocks
Solving Kakuro #3 - Locked Values
Solving Kakuro #4 - Reducing Combinations
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