Sudoku and Fillomino are both grid-based logic puzzles you solve by pure deduction, so solvers naturally wonder how alike they really are. The short answer: Fillomino is distant to Sudoku. Below we lay out what the two share, where they part ways, and whether the skills you have built on Sudoku will carry over.
- Grid: Rectangular
- Closeness to Sudoku: Distant
- Also called: Allied Occupation
What is Fillomino?
Divide the grid into regions so that each number sits in a region of exactly that many cells, and no two same-size regions touch. Here are the rules in full:
- Split the whole grid into regions; every cell of a region shows the region's size.
- Two regions of the same size may not share an edge.
- Empty cells are filled in to complete the regions.
See a Fillomino grid
Fillomino divides the grid into regions where every cell shows the size of its region, and no two regions of the same size may touch. Below, a region of three 3s sits beside a region of two 2s.
Three 3s form one region; two 2s another; a lone 1 its own - same-size regions never touch.
Both carve the grid into regions under strict rules and reason by logic alone, and both use "same value can't touch" thinking - here for region sizes, in Sudoku for digits. But the numbers describe region sizes, not values placed once per line, and there are no rows, columns or boxes. A distant cousin.
What Fillomino shares with Sudoku
- Both carve the grid into regions under strict rules and are solved by logic alone.
- Both use "same value can't touch" reasoning - here for region sizes, in Sudoku for digits.
How Fillomino differs from Sudoku
- The numbers describe region sizes, not values placed once per line.
- There are no rows, columns or fixed boxes to satisfy.
Do Sudoku skills transfer?
The mechanics differ, but the "equal things must stay apart" logic echoes Sudoku's no-repeat rule, and the same careful case-checking cracks both.
The verdict
Fillomino borrows Sudoku's "same value can't touch" idea for region sizes, but it's a partitioning puzzle at heart.
Where to play it
If it was Sudoku you came for, the level is the choice that matters more than the variant - Fillomino and Sudoku part ways on the rules, but a Sudoku grid can be a two-minute warm-up or an hour of work depending on nothing but how much of it you are given.
Difficulty and type are two separate dials here: the type sets the extra rule, the level sets how much of the grid you start with. Easy Sudoku leaves 36 of the 81 cells filled, so there is always an obvious next move somewhere; Evil Sudoku leaves 23, with no easy moves at all. Take it at the gentler end while the pattern is still new, and move up once it stops being a fight.