Sudoku and Numberlink are both grid-based logic puzzles you solve by pure deduction, so solvers naturally wonder how alike they really are. The short answer: Numberlink 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: Arukone, Nanbarinku
What is Numberlink?
Connect each pair of matching numbers with a path so the paths never cross and, in the classic form, fill every cell. Here are the rules in full:
- Join each pair of equal numbers with a single non-crossing path.
- Paths run horizontally and vertically and never overlap.
- In the standard version every cell is covered by exactly one path.
What a Numberlink looks like
Numberlink joins each pair of matching numbers with a non-crossing path, filling the grid. Here is a small solved one: the 1s joined along the top, the 2s along the bottom, with no paths crossing.
The 1s joined (red), the 2s joined (blue) - non-crossing paths that fill the grid.
Both are single-solution logic puzzles solved without guessing, and both reward ruling out routes that would strand a cell. But you draw connecting paths, not digits placed once per line, and the matching numbers are labels, not values - a distant relative.
What Numberlink shares with Sudoku
- Both are single-solution logic puzzles solved without guessing.
- Both reward ruling out routes that would strand a cell or clash with a rule.
How Numberlink differs from Sudoku
- You draw connecting paths, not digits placed once per line.
- The matching numbers are labels, not values, and there is no no-repeat rule.
Do Sudoku skills transfer?
Nothing places a digit, so no technique transfers - but the elimination habit, "this cell has only one way to be reached", mirrors Sudoku's.
The verdict
Numberlink shares Sudoku's deductive discipline but is a path-connection 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 - Numberlink 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.