Puzzle guide
How to solve Heyawake
Heyawake is a puzzle of rooms. Thick walls split the grid into rooms, some with a number, and you fill cells so that every rule holds. Its special rule is about long empty lines, and once you see it, the puzzle opens up.
The rules
- Fill some cells. A room's number is exactly how many of its cells are filled. A room without a number can have any count.
- Two filled cells never touch side by side: left, right, up or down. Touching at a corner is fine.
- The empty cells form one connected area.
- A straight line of empty cells never passes through more than two rooms.
A solved puzzle
Your first moves
- Mark every room with a 0 empty: put a dot in each of its cells.
- Look for small rooms with big numbers: a room of three cells in a row with a 2 has its filled cells at both ends.
- Every time you fill a cell, put a dot on its four neighbours.
- Look for straight lines of dots that already reach into two rooms. The next cell in a third room may have to be filled.
Techniques, step by step
A room with no choice
This room is three cells long and needs 2 filled cells. They may not touch, so the only way is both ends, with the middle cell empty. Whenever a room's number leaves no choice like this, fill it at once.
No touching
Filled cells never touch side by side. So as soon as you fill a cell, all four of its neighbours are empty. Mark them with a dot. This is the move you will make most often.
Exactly that many
This room says 1, and its filled cell is already there. It may not have any more, so every other cell in the room is empty. A room with a 0 is the same from the very start: dots everywhere.
Two rooms, no more
This is the rule that makes Heyawake special. The dots form a straight line of empty cells that already reaches from one room into the next. If the remaining cell were empty too, the line would run through three rooms, which is not allowed. So that cell must be filled. Look along every row and column for empty lines that cross a wall twice.
One way out
All the empty cells have to stay connected. The corner cell has a filled cell next to it, so its only way to the rest is the cell below. If you filled that cell, the corner would be shut in. So it stays empty. Check this near edges and corners and between filled cells that stand close together.
Think ahead with a room's count
Sometimes several empty lines can only be broken from inside the same room, and that room has just enough filled cells for them. Then those filled cells are spoken for, and every other cell of the room is empty. On harder boards, try the few ways a room's filled cells can lie: a cell that is empty in all of them is empty.
Common mistakes
- Filled cells side by side. Corners may touch, sides may not.
- Forgetting the line rule. A straight row or column of empty cells may pass through at most two rooms. It is the rule most people forget.
- Cutting off empty cells. All the empty cells must stay connected. Filled cells in a diagonal line can quietly wall off a corner.
- Counting rooms without numbers. A room with no number can have any number of filled cells, even none.
Questions and answers
Ready to play?
Fill what the rooms need, dot every neighbour, keep the empty cells together and never let an empty line cross three rooms. That is Heyawake, from the first room to the last.