Play Heyawake Online — Free
Shade cells so that numbered rooms have exactly that many shaded cells, no two shaded cells are adjacent, and all white cells are connected.
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About Heyawake
Heyawake — Japanese for “divided rooms” — is a Nikoli grid-shading puzzle. A grid is divided into rectangular rooms, each with a number (or none). The number tells you how many cells in that room must be shaded. Shaded cells cannot be orthogonally adjacent, all unshaded cells must form a single connected group, and a run of consecutive unshaded cells may not cross more than one room boundary.
That last rule — the “crossing” rule — is what makes Heyawake distinctive and surprisingly deep. It forces shaded cells to appear at regular intervals along long white corridors, creating a rhythmic constraint that can propagate across the entire grid from a single placement.
Heyawake is beloved by experienced puzzle enthusiasts for its depth. Simple-looking grids can require surprisingly complex reasoning, and the multi-room structure gives each puzzle a unique spatial character. It’s one of Nikoli’s most original designs.
Rooms with clue 0 (all cells unshaded) and rooms whose clue equals their size (all cells shaded) are the strongest starting points. Then apply the crossing rule: identify any long white runs that would cross two or more boundaries, and place shaded cells to interrupt them.
Frequently asked questions
What is Heyawake?
Heyawake is a logic puzzle where you shade cells in a room-divided grid. Rooms with numbers must contain exactly that many shaded cells. No two shaded cells can be adjacent, and all white cells must form a single connected region.