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A number counts toward Sudoku rules only after it is locked. Until then, it is a material tile: it may duplicate another value in the same row, column, or box and can merge with an equal neighbor. That separation lets a merge game and Sudoku share one board without either rule system canceling out the other.
Why the board needs two tile states
Sudoku requires each digit to appear only once in a row, column, and box. A 2048-style merge mechanic, by contrast, needs equal tiles to coexist long enough to combine. If every tile had to obey Sudoku uniqueness as soon as it appeared, duplicate pairs could be forbidden before they could merge. If Sudoku rules applied only at the end, they would not meaningfully constrain play along the way.
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This game resolves that conflict with two states: material and locked. As designer Ayoola Solomon puts it, “Sudoku uniqueness applies only to locked digits.” Read the game’s rules and design explanation.
Material tiles can duplicate and merge
A material tile does not count toward Sudoku uniqueness. It can share a value with other material tiles in its row, column, or box, and equal material tiles can merge.
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Locked tiles count as Sudoku digits
A locked tile counts toward Sudoku uniqueness and cannot merge. A tile can be sealed only when locking it would not duplicate a locked value in its row, column, or box.
How spawning, merging, and sealing work
The game’s core actions are spawn, merge, and seal. A successful spawn, merge, or seal changes the board; spawning places a material 1 into an empty cell without a Sudoku uniqueness check.
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Merge equal neighbors
Two equal material tiles merge when they are orthogonally adjacent—that is, side by side, not diagonal. They become the next value on the survivor cell, and the other cell is cleared. The result remains material, and merges do not chain automatically. The maximum digit is 4 on Easy and 6 on Medium and Hard.
Seal a tile when it is legal
Sealing turns a material tile into a locked tile in place. The move is legal only if that value is not already present among the locked tiles in the same row, column, or box. Material tiles do not block the seal, because they do not yet count toward Sudoku uniqueness.
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What winning—and getting stuck—means
To win, every cell must contain a locked tile, and each row, column, and box must contain every digit in that board’s alphabet exactly once. A board may be locally legal without being completable: a seal can pass its row, column, and box checks while still leaving a globally doomed arrangement.
Version 1 checks whether a seal is legal, but not whether the remaining board can still be solved. Solomon has described that behavior as intentional: “v1 only checks legality, not solvability.” A soft-lock occurs when no spawn, merge, or seal is available even though empty cells remain. Undo reverses the last successful spawn, merge, or seal, and remains available in a soft-lock. Read Solomon’s clarification about solvability checks.
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Difficulty settings
All three modes start without seeded givens: the player builds the puzzle from an empty board. Their board sizes, digit ranges, and assistance allowances differ:
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 4×4 | 1–4 | 5 | 3 |
| Medium | 6×6 | 1–6 | 3 | 2 |
| Hard | 6×6 | 1–6 | 1 | 1 |
What hints and undo do
A hint identifies one currently legal move; it does not promise that the move leads to a win or that the board remains solvable. Hints prefer, in order, merges that avoid crowding the survivor’s row, column, or box with the result digit; spawns that set up merges; and seals of material values that are unique among locked tiles.
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Undo is the recovery option when a move leaves the board in a bad position. It reverses the most recent successful spawn, merge, or seal, rather than testing whether the whole board can be completed.
Daily and Endless play
Daily
Daily offers one run per UTC day and resumes a run left mid-board. The chosen difficulty locks after the first successful spawn, merge, seal, or hint. Its timer starts with the first real move—not while the empty board is merely open—pauses when the tab is hidden, and freezes at a win.
After a Daily win is finalized, sharing is optional. The reported share image includes a board snapshot with digit hues and a caption showing the game name, UTC date, difficulty, win, undos and hints used, elapsed time, and a play-page link. Losses do not produce a share artifact. These are details described by the game’s article, not an independent verification of the current live implementation.
Endless
Endless allows repeated runs and does not provide the Daily share artifact. The same spawn, merge, seal, and Sudoku-uniqueness rules apply in both modes.
The key distinction in one comparison
| Rule system | What it requires | When this game applies it |
|---|---|---|
| 2048-style merging | Equal neighboring tiles can coexist long enough to combine. | While tiles are material; equal orthogonally adjacent material tiles merge. |
| Sudoku | Each digit appears once in each row, column, and box. | When a tile is locked; only locked tiles count toward uniqueness. |
The practical question is not whether every occupied cell is Sudoku-valid immediately. It is whether a tile is valid when you commit it by sealing.
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