Sudoku and Hidato are both grid-based logic puzzles you solve by pure deduction, so solvers naturally wonder how alike they really are. The short answer: Hidato 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: Any connected shape
- Closeness to Sudoku: Distant
- Also called: Hidoku, Number Snake
What is Hidato?
Fill the grid with a consecutive run of numbers so that each number touches the next, diagonals included. Here are the rules in full:
- Place 1 to N so consecutive numbers are adjacent — orthogonally or diagonally.
- Every cell is used once, forming an unbroken chain.
- Given numbers, including the endpoints, pin the path down.
See a Hidato path
Hidato fills the grid with a consecutive run of numbers so each touches the next — diagonals allowed. Here 1 to 9 wind through a 3×3 grid, with the 8→9 step going diagonally.
1 to 9 as one chain; consecutive numbers touch, orthogonally or diagonally (8→9).
Like Numbrix, both puzzles fill a whole grid by deduction with a single solution — but Hidato builds a consecutive path (diagonals allowed) rather than Latin rows and columns. No no-repeat or box rule applies, only the chain. It is a distant relative of Sudoku.
What Hidato shares with Sudoku
- Both fill a whole grid by pure deduction with a single solution.
- Both hinge on spotting the only placement a clue allows.
How Hidato differs from Sudoku
- It builds one consecutive path (diagonals allowed), not Latin rows and columns.
- There is no no-repeat or region rule — only the chain.
Do Sudoku skills transfer?
Like Numbrix, no digit technique carries over, yet the forced-next-step reasoning is the same instinct Sudoku singles train.
The verdict
Hidato is Numbrix with diagonal moves — Sudoku's logical spirit in a path-building shell.