Sudoku vs Masyu

Sudoku and Masyu are both grid-based logic puzzles you solve by pure deduction, so solvers naturally wonder how alike they really are. The short answer: Masyu 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: White Pearls and Black Pearls

What is Masyu?

Draw a single loop through the cell centres that passes through every pearl, obeying a straight-or-turn rule for white and black pearls. Here are the rules in full:

• Draw one closed loop through cell centres, moving horizontally and vertically.
• At a white pearl the loop goes straight through but must turn in at least one of the cells next to it.
• At a black pearl the loop turns 90°, then goes straight for a cell on both sides.

What a Masyu looks like

A Masyu is one loop drawn through the cell centres, obeying rules at white and black pearls (go straight through a white, turn at a black). Here is a small solved loop passing through two pearls.

It is a single-solution logic puzzle solved by deduction, and both puzzles chain local constraints into a forced global answer. But the answer is a loop, not a filled number grid, and the pearls constrain its shape — no counting, no arithmetic. A distant relative.

What Masyu shares with Sudoku

• It is a single-solution logic puzzle solved by deduction alone.
• Both puzzles lean on chaining local constraints into a forced global answer.

How Masyu differs from Sudoku

• The answer is a loop, not a filled grid of numbers.
• The pearls constrain the loop's shape; there is no counting or arithmetic.

Do Sudoku skills transfer?

No digit technique carries over, but Masyu rewards the same forward-chaining logic — force one segment, see what it forces next — that solves hard Sudoku.

The verdict

Masyu is a loop puzzle that shares Sudoku's deductive spirit while looking nothing like it on the page.