Games Like Meowdoku: Same Rules, Harder Boards, and No-Ads Picks

If you're looking for games like Meowdoku, the best matches aren't other cat games or match-3 titles. They're the puzzles that share Meowdoku's four rules: one cat per row, one per column, one per colored region, and no two cats touching, even diagonally. That rule set is the one-star form of Star Battle, the same puzzle LinkedIn sells as Queens. So the short answer: play LinkedIn Queens for a daily board with the same rules, two-star Star Battle when Meowdoku feels easy, Simon Tatham's collection if you want zero ads, or keep going with endless Meowdoku in your browser.

Below is why those picks fit, and which one to choose for what you're after.

What makes a game "like Meowdoku"?

Search "games like Meowdoku" and some lists suggest Tetris, Toy Blast, or Farm Heroes Saga. They share a "puzzle" tag and nothing else. What makes Meowdoku feel the way it does is its rule set, which you can read in full on the four rules page:

1. Exactly one cat in each row.
2. Exactly one cat in each column.
3. Exactly one cat in each colored region.
4. No two cats touch — not side by side, not corner to corner.

Change the cat to a crown and you have LinkedIn Queens. Change it to a star and you have one-star Star Battle. The puzzle-star-battle.com rule sheet states it plainly: "For 1★ puzzles, you have to place 1 star on each row, column and shape," and "2 stars cannot be adjacent horizontally, vertically or diagonally."

That's why the habits you build in Meowdoku carry over directly. Marking cells a cat already rules out, spotting a region squeezed into a single row: those skills are the whole game in every member of this family.

Games like Meowdoku at a glance

Same rules, different look

LinkedIn Queens

Queens is the version most people have already met. It lives inside LinkedIn, so you need an account, and it gives you one board per day. Its game page showed no ad slots when I checked, and seeing which of your connections played is a big part of the appeal. I compare the two in detail in Meowdoku vs LinkedIn Queens. If you like Meowdoku and want a short daily ritual, this is the closest match.

The catch is volume. One board a day is nothing if you want to practice a technique ten times in a row.

Meowdoku.run (this site)

This is the browser version I build and maintain, so read this section with that in mind. Here's what it actually offers:

• Endless boards in 6×6, 7×7, and 8×8, each generated and checked for a single solution before you see it.
• Three daily boards (Easy, Normal, Hard), the same for everyone, resetting at midnight UTC.
• Three hints per puzzle that explain the step, for example: "Every open cell of the orange region lies in row 6, so that region's cat will use up row 6. Mark the highlighted cells ✕." A hint only reveals a cat outright when no single-step deduction is left.
• Undo that takes back moves but never refunds a heart.

It's free with no account and no install. It does show a few banner and native ads, placed between page sections and never on top of the board. No pop-ups, no video ads. It is not the Meowdoku! mobile app and isn't affiliated with it.

When Meowdoku feels too easy: harder games

"Meowdoku is getting too easy" is one of the most common things players type. To put a number on how easy, I ran 1,500 freshly generated boards (500 per size) through the same deduction engine that powers the in-game hints, using only single-step deductions: crossing out cells a cat covers, spotting the last open cell in a row, column, or region, and region–line locks.

So roughly three in ten 8×8 boards ask for something deeper than a one-step move: reasoning about two regions at once, or following a chain a few moves ahead. If you clear 8×8 boards without ever reaching for a hint, you've learned the single-step toolkit, and it's time for a puzzle where that toolkit runs out on almost every board.

Two-star Star Battle

Same rules, doubled: two stars in every row, column, and region, still never touching. Krazydad has published three varieties since 2018 — an easier 8×8 1-star, a harder 10×10 2-star, and a much harder 14×14 3-star — and describes the rule the same way: "each row, column and bolded region must contain the same number of stars… Stars may not reside in adjacent cells (not even diagonally)."

The jump from one star to two is bigger than it sounds. With two stars per line, a region confined to two rows doesn't settle anything by itself; you start pairing regions and counting how many stars a group of rows still owes. If you've been using region line-locks in Meowdoku, two-star boards are where that idea grows into its harder cousins.

A note on ads: puzzle archive sites run on very different models, so check each one. Some show ads, some don't.

Games like Meowdoku without ads

An honest framing first: Meowdoku.run is free because of a few light banner ads, so if "no ads at all" is a hard requirement, here's where to look.

• LinkedIn Queens. Same rules, and no ad slots on the game page when I checked in October 2026. The trade-off is an account and one board a day.
• Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection. Free, open source, no ads, with 40 puzzles that run in a browser and natively on Windows and Linux (there's also a community Android port by Chris Boyle). It does not include Star Battle, but several of its grid-logic puzzles scratch the same itch of filling a grid by pure deduction.

The hints, the cats, and unlimited boards with no install are what you'd give up. Whether that's worth a banner or two is your call.

Other logic puzzles Meowdoku players enjoy

Once the no-touching rule feels natural, these two reuse the same "deduce, don't guess" muscles with different rules:

• Nurikabe. Shade cells to build a single connected "sea" around numbered "islands." It's a Nikoli puzzle, and it rewards the same habit of marking what can't be before deciding what must be.
• Norinori. Shade exactly two cells in each region so that every shaded cell is part of a domino, and dominoes never touch except diagonally. It feels like a cousin of Meowdoku: regions plus a touching rule.

Which one should you play?

• You want a daily board with the same rules: LinkedIn Queens, or today's daily boards here if you'd rather skip the account.
• You want to practice a lot, right now: endless Meowdoku. Unlimited boards, no install.
• You keep getting stuck and want to learn why: Meowdoku's hints explain the deduction instead of just placing a cat.
• 8×8 has stopped challenging you: two-star Star Battle.
• No ads, no matter what: Simon Tatham's collection, or LinkedIn Queens if you already have an account.
• You want something new: Nurikabe or Norinori.

Frequently asked questions

Is Meowdoku the same as LinkedIn Queens?

The rules are the same: one piece in every row, every column, and every colored region, and no two pieces may touch, not even diagonally. Meowdoku places cats, LinkedIn Queens places crowns. Both are the one-star version of the classic Star Battle puzzle.

Is there a game like Meowdoku without ads?

LinkedIn Queens showed no ad slots on its game page when I checked in October 2026, but it needs a LinkedIn account and gives you one board a day. Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection is free, open source, and ad-free, though it has related logic puzzles rather than this exact one. Meowdoku.run is free with no account and shows a few banner ads that never cover the board.

What is harder than Meowdoku?

Two-star Star Battle. It keeps the same rules but asks for two stars per row, column, and region on bigger grids (10×10 is typical), so single-step deductions run out much sooner and you have to reason about pairs of regions.

Is Meowdoku.run the official Meowdoku app?

No. Meowdoku.run is an independent browser version and is not affiliated with any Meowdoku mobile app, including the Meowdoku! app by Oakever Games. It runs in any browser with nothing to install — see how this web version compares to the app.

References

• LinkedIn, Queens (official game page).
• puzzle-star-battle.com, Star Battle rules (1★ and 2★ rule statements).
• Krazydad, Star Battle Puzzles (1★ 8×8, 2★ 10×10, 3★ 14×14 varieties).
• Simon Tatham, Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection.
• Wikipedia, Nurikabe (puzzle).
• puzzle-norinori.com, Norinori rules.
• Meowdoku data: 1,500 boards generated and solved by the in-game hint engine on 2026-10-10 (500 each at 6×6, 7×7, 8×8).