How to Play Meowdoku
Meowdoku is a cat-themed logic puzzle in the style of Sudoku and the Queens puzzle. Despite the "cat Sudoku" nickname, you never write numbers and you don't fill in the whole grid — you simply place a few cats in exactly the right spots, using logic alone.
The goal
Place a single cat in every row, every column, and every colored region — and make sure no two cats ever touch. On a 6×6 board that means just six cats in total; most cells stay empty. When all the cats are placed correctly, the puzzle is solved.
The rules of Meowdoku
- Every row contains exactly one cat.
- Every column contains exactly one cat.
- Every colored region contains exactly one cat.
- No two cats may touch — not horizontally, vertically, or even diagonally. Once a cat is placed, all eight cells around it are off-limits.
How Meowdoku differs from Sudoku
If you expect classic Sudoku, three things will surprise you:
- No numbers, no math. You place cats, not digits — it is pure pattern logic.
- You don't fill the grid. Sudoku fills every cell; Meowdoku places just one cat per row, column, and region, so most cells stay blank.
- Cats can't touch. This adjacency rule — including the diagonals — doesn't exist in Sudoku, and it's the heart of the puzzle. It comes from the Queens puzzle, which Meowdoku is built on.
One more thing worth knowing: every board here is generated with a guaranteed single solution you can always reach by reasoning — you never have to guess.
Playing the game
Controls
Tap a cell to cycle through three states: empty → ✕ (your own note that a cat can't go there) → 🐱 (a placed cat) → empty again. The ✕ mark is just a memory aid; only cats are checked against the rules.
How you win and lose
- Win: place the full set of cats with every row, column, and region holding exactly one, and no two cats touching.
- Lose: you have three hearts. Placing a cat that breaks a rule costs one heart, and losing all three ends the round — but you can retry instantly.
Reading the board
- ❤️ Lives (top left): your three hearts. Each rule- breaking placement removes one.
- ⏱ Timer (middle): how long you've spent on the current puzzle. Solve it to set your best time.
- 🐾 Cats placed (top right): how many cats you've placed out of the total needed to finish the board.
Game modes
- Play (endless): an unlimited stream of freshly generated puzzles. Pick Easy, Normal, or Hard and play as many as you like.
- Daily: one special puzzle per day, the same board for everyone. Come back each day to beat your time.
Cat puzzle solving tips
- Region pressure: if a colored region has only one cell left that could hold a cat, that's where it goes.
- Row / column pressure: the same logic applies to any row or column down to its last legal cell.
- Mark the neighbors: after placing a cat, ✕ out all eight cells around it — no other cat can touch it.
- No guessing needed: if you're stuck, there is always a logical next step — look for the most constrained line or region rather than taking a chance.