Futoshiki is a free online logic puzzle from Japan that blends Latin-square filling with greater-than and less-than clues. You complete a grid with numbers so that none repeat in any row or column, while obeying the inequality signs between cells. Play in your browser with no download and no sign-up.
If you enjoy Sudoku, Futoshiki offers a fresh twist driven by those ordering constraints. Easy, Medium and Hard puzzles use bigger grids with fewer given numbers, so the deduction gets steadily more demanding.
The name futōshiki (不等式) is simply the Japanese word for "inequality", and the puzzle is sometimes published in English papers under exactly that name, or as "Unequal". It reached a mass audience when The Guardian began printing a daily Futoshiki in 2006, and it has been a staple of puzzle pages ever since. Underneath, every solved grid is a Latin square — an arrangement where each symbol appears once per row and column — a structure the mathematician Leonhard Euler studied back in the eighteenth century.
Experienced solvers lean on min-max propagation: a cell sitting at the top of a chain like a > b > c can never hold the two smallest values, and the bottom of the chain can never hold the two largest. On a 5×5 grid, spotting a 1 or a 5 forced by such a chain often cracks the whole puzzle open, because each placement feeds the no-repeat rule, which in turn tightens the remaining inequalities.
Fill the grid so that each row and each column contains every number exactly once, while satisfying every greater-than (>) and less-than (<) sign between adjacent cells.
Click or tap a cell and type the number you want to place; clear a cell to remove it. Many puzzles let you pencil in small candidate notes to track possibilities. The inequality signs between cells are fixed clues you must always respect.
There is no point score — the puzzle is solved when the grid is correctly and completely filled with no repeated numbers in any row or column and every inequality satisfied. It can be solved by logic alone.
Start where the inequalities are most restrictive: a chain like a < b < c forces an order that often pins down the smallest or largest values. Combine the no-repeat rule with the signs to eliminate candidates, and use pencil notes to narrow each cell down before committing.
How is Futoshiki different from Sudoku?
Like Sudoku you avoid repeats in rows and columns, but Futoshiki adds greater-than and less-than signs you must also obey.
Do I ever need to guess?
No, every Futoshiki puzzle here can be solved with pure logic.
Is it free?
Yes, play unlimited puzzles free in your browser with no download or sign-up.
More classic games: Sudoku, Kakuro, Bridges, Nonograms, Hanjie, and all 100 free games.