Sudoku and Tapa are both grid-based logic puzzles you solve by pure deduction, so solvers naturally wonder how alike they really are. The short answer: Tapa 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: Turning A Pattern
What is Tapa?
Shade cells into one connected wall so each clue matches the run-lengths of shaded cells around it, with no solid 2×2 block. Here are the rules in full:
- A clue cell is never shaded; its numbers give the lengths of the shaded runs among its eight neighbours.
- All shaded cells connect into one wall.
- No 2×2 area is fully shaded.
What a Tapa looks like
Tapa shades cells into one connected wall so each clue matches the run-lengths of shaded cells among its eight neighbours, with no solid 2×2. Here is a small solved grid: the "3" clue has a run of three shaded cells around it.
A "3" clue: three shaded cells run along its neighbours, all part of one connected wall.
Both are single-solution logic puzzles solved without guessing, and both reward reading a clue for what it forbids. But you shade a wall rather than place digits, and clues describe neighbours, not the cell itself - connectivity and the no-2×2 rule have no Sudoku parallel. A distant relative.
What Tapa shares with Sudoku
- Both are single-solution logic puzzles solved without guessing.
- Both reward reading a clue for what it forbids as much as what it allows.
How Tapa differs from Sudoku
- You shade a wall, not place digits, and clues describe neighbours, not the cell itself.
- Connectivity and the no-2×2 rule have no Sudoku parallel.
Do Sudoku skills transfer?
Nothing places a digit, but the discipline of proving each shaded run before committing is the very patience Sudoku builds.
The verdict
Tapa keeps Sudoku's logic-only spirit but plays out as a connected wall of shaded cells.
Where to play it
If it was Sudoku you came for, the level is the choice that matters more than the variant - Tapa 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.