Heyawake Puzzle
Shade cells inside rectangular rooms so white cells stay connected. Pick Shade or Dot, then mark cells so each room number is exact, shaded cells never touch by a side, and the white cells stay in one piece.
Tap a cell, or drag across cells, to place the mark. Tap a mark again to clear it. A number stays in the corner of its room. Press M to switch Shade and Dot. With a mouse, right-click places a dot.
How to play Heyawake
Choose Shade or Dot
Shade is a black cell. A dot is a cell you already know is white. Tap a cell, or drag across cells, to place the mark. Tap a cell that already has that mark to clear it. A cell with the other mark takes the new one. The number in a room stays put.
Read the rooms
Thick lines divide the board into rectangles. A number in the top-left cell of a room is how many cells in that room are shaded. A room with no number has no fixed count. A 0 means every cell in the room is white. Shaded cells may touch at a corner, never along a side.
Keep the white cells joined
Every white cell has to touch the other white cells by a side. A straight run of white cells in one row or one column must not pass through three rooms or more. The puzzle is finished when the shaded cells are that set, even if some white cells still have no dot.
Heyawake is a shading puzzle on a board of rectangular rooms. You shade some cells, leave the rest white, and the white cells have to stay in one piece. You can play grids from 6×6 up to 10×10, and every puzzle here has exactly one shaded set that you can reach by logic, with no guessing.
Rules
The board is an n×n grid divided into rectangles. Thick lines are the room walls. Thin lines are the cells inside a room. Some rooms show a number in the top-left cell. That number is how many cells in the room are shaded. A room with no number can hold any count that the other rules allow. A room marked 0 is entirely white.
Shade a cell to make it black, or leave it white. A dot is a mark for a cell you already know is white. Dots are optional. The puzzle does not ask you to dot every white cell. The number stays in its cell even when that cell is shaded.
No two shaded cells may share a side. They may touch at a corner. Every white cell must share a side with the rest of the white region, so the white cells form one connected shape. A straight run of white cells along a row or a column must not pass through three rooms or more. Crossing two rooms is allowed. Crossing a third is not.
The puzzle is solved when the shaded cells are that unique set. White cells may still be blank. You do not have to place a dot on every white cell.
Controls
Choose Shade or Dot under the board. Tap a cell, or drag across cells, to place that mark. Tap a cell that already has the mark to clear it. A cell that has the other mark takes the new one. A drag follows the first cell: it places the mark, or it clears when that cell already has it. With a mouse, right-click places a dot, or clears a dot that is already there.
On a keyboard, the arrow keys move around the grid. Space or Enter places the selected mark, or clears it when the cell already has that mark. S or 1 shades the cell. X, D, E, or 2 places a dot. M switches Shade and Dot. Backspace, Delete, or 0 clears the cell.
A room number turns teal when the shaded count matches and every cell in the room is already marked. A room of 0 stays plain while any cell is still blank, so an untouched board does not look finished. A room turns red when it has too many shaded cells, or when the cells still open cannot reach the number. Press Hint for one step the rules already force, with a sentence saying why. Press Check when you want the board checked against the rules. Undo and Redo step through your moves, and Reset clears the board. When the shaded cells are the unique set, the board turns teal.
Techniques
Easy grids follow from one room at a time, plus the rule that shaded cells cannot touch:
- Zero: a 0 leaves every open cell in the room white.
- Neighbour: a shaded cell forces the cells beside it to stay white.
- Quota: the room number forces the cells that are still open.
- Room agree: every way to place this room’s shaded cells agrees here.
- Room exit: the other ways to shade this room would trap a white cell.
- One-cell gap: a straight gap with one open cell is shaded.
Medium and hard grids look further along a straight gap, and at whether shading a cell would split the white region. The hardest step tries the other mark on one cell and keeps the mark that does not break a room, a gap, or the white region.
Beginner tips
Start with the 0 rooms. They clear a whole rectangle, and those white cells often force a neighbour to stay white as well.
When a room already has its number, dot the rest of that room before you look for a longer white path. Then check that no shaded cell touches another by a side.
If you are new to Heyawake, start with the daily 6×6 easy grid, or another 6×6 easy grid, and move up once room numbers and the three-room line feel natural.