Sudoku and Tents are both grid-based logic puzzles you solve by pure deduction, so solvers naturally wonder how alike they really are. The short answer: Tents 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 with trees
- Closeness to Sudoku: Distant
- Also called: Tents and Trees, Camping
What is Tents?
Pitch one tent beside each tree so no two tents touch and the row and column clues count the tents correctly. Here are the rules in full:
- Each tree gets exactly one tent in an orthogonally adjacent cell, paired one-to-one.
- No two tents may touch, not even diagonally.
- The numbers beside each row and column give how many tents it holds.
What a Tents puzzle looks like
Tents pairs each tree with one adjacent tent, so no two tents touch (even diagonally) and row and column clues count the tents. Here is a small solved grid: two trees (T), each with its tent (▲) placed beside it and kept apart.
Two trees (T), each with an adjacent tent (▲); no two tents touch.
The row and column counts drive placements the way Sudoku clues do, and the no-touching rule is the same king's-move idea as Anti-King Sudoku. But you place tents, most cells staying empty, rather than filling digits — a distant relative.
What Tents shares with Sudoku
- The row/column counts drive placements much as Sudoku clues do.
- The no-touching rule is the same king's-move idea as Anti-King Sudoku.
- It is pure logic with one solution.
How Tents differs from Sudoku
- You place tents, most cells staying empty, rather than filling digits.
- The tree-pairing and adjacency rules have no Sudoku equivalent.
Do Sudoku skills transfer?
No digit technique applies, but "this row needs two more tents and only two cells qualify" is the same forced-count logic as a Sudoku hidden single.
The verdict
Tents borrows Sudoku's line-counting and no-touch ideas but resolves into a campsite, not a number grid.
Prefer to stay with Sudoku?
If Tents appeals, these Sudoku variants scratch the same itch and you can read up on each here: