Strategies For Solving Futoshiki
| Games : Puzzles When it comes to solving futoshiki, there are a few obvious strategies to use first. These are that you use the elimination rules from sudoku: ie go through the row and column and work out what numbers can go in this cell based on those already there. Then see where each particular number can go in each row or column. That's familiar. The next obvious rule is to obey the greater than and less than signs. At the start of the puzzle, remember that if you have a < b then 'a' must be 1-4 and 'b' is 2-5, then take out any more info you can. Less obvious perhaps is that when you have this: a < b > c : all within one row or column, then we know that 'b' must be 3,4,5 : we can eliminate the '2' from it as well. This can help. Next up, some other useful rules to help solve harder futoshiki or solve easier ones quicker! If we have this; 12 | 12 | 12345 | 12345 | 124 for instance as the candidates for a region, then we can take the 1 and 2 out of all cells other than the first two, giving us this: 12 | 12 | 345 | 345 | 4 That's progress! One more that may be harder to spot: 125 | 12345 | 125 | 15 | 12345 This becomes: 125 | 34 | 125 | 12 | 125 Can you see why? ;-)
 Questions about futoshiki:
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