TappyPotato logic puzzles

Number & arithmetic

Jigsaw Sudoku — rules and where to play

JIGSAW SUDOKU · Irregular Sudoku / Nonomino / Geometric Sudoku

Swap the nine 3×3 boxes for nine ragged regions. One sentence changes the rules, and it rewrites almost every technique you know.

Origin
1994 · United Kingdom
Difficulty
★★★★★ 2–5 / 5
Time
10–60 min
Grid
9×9
Sites
6

Rules

  1. Each row, column and irregular region contains 1–9 exactly once.
  2. Regions may be any connected shape of nine cells.
  3. Everything else matches standard Sudoku.

How to start

Look for squeezed cells

Where a row, column and region barely overlap, the candidate list collapses to almost nothing.

Mind the single-cell spur

The one cell a region pokes into another area is usually where the grid breaks open.

Relearn box-based techniques from scratch

Many standard patterns do not survive irregular regions.

Where players get stuck

  • Applying standard box elimination, which simply does not hold here.
  • Treating two same-shaped regions in different places as equivalent.

Play Jigsaw Sudoku

6 sites
f-puzzlesFree

The default web editor for Sudoku variants. Build a grid, send the link, or just solve.

Open → SudokuPadFree

The variant player a lot of people use now, and it edits too. There's an app and a Steam build.

Open → Penpa+Free

A fat editor for Japanese types: lots of shapes and marks, and it will ingest a puzz.link.

Open → Puzzle Jigsaw SudokuFreemium

Puzzle Team Jigsaw Sudoku: irregular regions instead of 3×3 boxes.

Open → Grandmaster PuzzlesFree

Thomas Snyder's own handmade Sudoku and variants — world-champion difficulty, not generated filler.

Open → GridPuzzleFree

Dozens of grid logic types in the browser, with progress tracking and dailies.

Open →

Browse Solvers & tools →

Also on multi-type portals

Puzzle RulesFree

Clean rule pages for dozens of types. Fastest way to learn a grid you haven't seen.

Open →

Browse portals →

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About this page
  • Last updated 2026-09-22
  • Source Curated compilation of established puzzle rules and listed third-party play sites
  • Audience Players learning Jigsaw Sudoku rules or looking for online sites to play
  • Covers Rules summary, how to start, common pitfalls, and the dedicated play sites listed on this page
  • Does not cover Hosted puzzles, worked solutions, official contest rankings, third-party uptime or pricing guarantees
  • Not advice This page is puzzle reference content only. It does not constitute financial, legal, medical or other professional advice.
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