Games - Hitori

	Games - Hitori

Hitori (ひとりにしてくれ Hitori ni shite kure; literally "let me alone") is a type of logic puzzle published by Nikoli.

Rules

Hitori is played on a grid of squares. At the beginning, each cell contains a number. The goal is to paint out some cells so that there are no duplicate numbers in any row or column, similar to the solved state of a Sudoku puzzle.

Orthogonal connections are important as well; painted-out (black) cells cannot be connected orthogonally, and the other cells must be connected orthogonally in a single group.

Solving techniques

Here is an example of Hitori:

An easy clue is a sequence of three same numbers; both ends must be painted out to satisfy the rules. When it is confirmed that a cell must be black, one can see all adjacent cells must not be black. Then another cell can be painted out to prevent reduplication.

Various techniques are required in more advanced problems. For example, one sometimes has to guess that a cell must be white, on the ground that if it were black, it would cause separation of the board no matter which cells are actually black in other rows.

History

Hitori is an original puzzle of Nikoli; it first appeared in Puzzle Communication Nikoli in issue #29 (March 1990).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Hitori ]

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