Sudoku Game

Fill in the grid with digits so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains all of the digits 1-9, without any repeats .

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Welcome to Play Sudoku! Our tool offers games of varying difficulties for you to test your Sudoku skills and flex your thinking. Read on to learn more about how to use our webpage and to learn about the other resources we offer.

How to Play Sudoku on The Word Finder

1. Using the drop-down menu, choose your level of difficulty. Our tool offers puzzles in Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulty. If you don’t like the puzzle you’ve generated, you can re-click the level of difficulty and our tool will load another puzzle for you. (For instance, if you click ‘normal’ puzzle but it doesn’t look interesting to you, click ‘normal’ again, and our tool will give you another puzzle of similar difficulty that may interest you more.)
2. When you’re ready to fill in a square, click on it. Then click the number you’d like to enter into the box. You can also type in the appropriate number using your laptop’s keyboard.
3. To delete an incorrect answer, click on the square containing the incorrect number. Y you can then click the trash can button at the top of the page to delete the entry. Or, use the ‘delete’ button on your laptop’s keyboard.
4. If you’d like to start over at any time, hit the refresh button. It will reset the puzzle and allow you to start anew.
5. Use the ‘how am I doing’ button to check your progress. This button will show you any mistakes you have made or will tell you your progress is on-track.
6. Use the ‘reveal cell’ button to help when you get stuck. This can help avoid the headache that can come from guessing numbers when you’re stumped.
7. Use the drop-down menu at the top of the page to save your puzzle, restart your puzzle, start a new puzzle, or give up. If you click ‘I give up,’ the puzzle will be automatically solved for you.

Ten Fun Facts About Sudoku

1. Despite the Japanese name, Sudoku was actually invented, in its current form, by Americans. Though the game didn’t initially take off in the U.S., it became popular in Japan and from there, became a global phenomenon. As a result, it’s now known by its Japanese name.
2. The first world Sudoku championships were held in 2006. Originally hosted in Lucca, Italy, the first games were won by Jana Tylova, a woman from the Czech Republic. Now, the Sudoku championships are held by different countries each year, and in 2021 will be held in Shanghai, China.
3. Sudoku is so interesting that British Airways had to enact a rule forbidding flight attendants from playing Sudoku puzzles during take-off and landing. Safety first!
4. There are 5,473,730,538 possible Sudoku puzzles represented online, meaning you’ll never run out of puzzles to play!
5. Despite being made of numbers, Sudoku is a logic game and requires no math. Some versions of Sudoku puzzles even do away with numbers entirely, replacing them with pictures or letters. These Sudokus are still solvable by the exact same rules as the original game.
6. The name ‘Sudoku’ stems from two Japanese words, ‘Su’ meaning ‘number,’ and ‘doku’ meaning ‘single’. Together, the name roughly translates to ‘single numbers only.’
7. But in Japan, Sudoku is typically not called by the name ‘Sudoku’. It is more often referred to by its American name: Number Place.
8. When it became popular in 2005, Sudoku gained a reputation as the most popular game craze since the Rubik’s Cube was invented in the 1980s.
9. Regularly playing Sudoku puzzles, like other word and number games, is considered to be one good way to prevent the development of mental illness and memory problems as you age.
10. Wayne Gould, a retired judge and puzzler in Hong Kong, is partially responsible for Sudoku’s global and internet success, writing the first computer program to create Sudoku puzzles in the early ‘00s.

Other Sudoku Resources

Looking for more Sudoku resources? Check out our Sudoku Solver to help when you get stuck on a game. Or check out our blog, including its Sudoku category, to read more Sudoku content.

Over 100 Thousand Sudoku puzzles. Enough to play three-a-day for your entire life!