🔢 Kakuro
🧩 Puzzle · 15 playsKakuro
A crossword where the answers are digits and the clues are sums.
About Kakuro
It looks like a crossword and plays like mental arithmetic. Every run of white cells has a small number at its head — that is what the digits in the run must add up to. You only ever use 1 to 9, and no digit may repeat inside the same run, which is where all the logic comes from: a run of two adding to 4 can only be 1 and 3. Start with the shortest runs and the rest unravels.
How to Play
Tap a white cell and choose a digit from 1 to 9. Each run must add up to the number in its clue block. No digit repeats inside a run. Fill every white cell to finish.
💡 Tips & Strategy
Learn the sums that have only one answer and half the grid solves itself. In two cells: 3 is 1+2, 4 is 1+3, 16 is 7+9 and 17 is 8+9. In three cells: 6 is 1+2+3, 7 is 1+2+4, 23 is 6+8+9 and 24 is 7+8+9. In four: 10 is 1+2+3+4 and 30 is 6+7+8+9. Pencil those in first — you may not know the order yet, but you know the digits.
The gold is where two of those runs cross. A two-cell 4 gives you {1,3}; if it crosses a three-cell 24 of {7,8,9}, the shared cell has to be in both sets — and since it can't be, one of your placements is wrong. Used the right way round, the overlap usually leaves a single candidate: cross {1,2} with {1,3} and the crossing cell is a 1.
Even ordinary clues set bounds. A run of two adding to 5 can never contain a 5 or more, and a run of two adding to 16 can never contain anything below 7. Write the highest and lowest each cell could be and whole lines collapse.
Remember the repeat rule only applies along a single run. The same digit can — and often must — appear twice in a row of the grid if a black block separates the two runs, and beginners lose a lot of time forgetting that.