Sudoku Made and maintained by Brian Hamilton and Karan Hamilton.
Brian builds the playable puzzle tools, while Karan helps test clarity, difficulty feel, and the player experience.
Playable puzzles and controls are tested in the browser for rule accuracy, usability, and a clear solving experience. See how we make and test puzzles, our editorial standards, or report a problem.
Winter Sudoku: For the Long Part of the Season
Winter Sudoku is classic Sudoku with nine cold-weather tiles — snowflake, snowman, mitten, scarf, sled, ice skate, hot drink, evergreen, and mountain. Icons, digits, or icons wearing small digit badges: however the board is dressed, each tile appears once in every row, column, and box.
Not the Christmas board — on purpose
Our Christmas Sudoku board effectively retires on December 26th. This one is for the rest of the season: there is no Santa, no gift, and nothing here that looks out of place in the middle of January or the grey first week of February. It also means the board works whenever winter happens to be — solvers in the southern hemisphere get a perfectly seasonal puzzle in July.
The board dresses in layers
Tiles join the board in order, and this set happens to layer up like a person heading outside. The 4x4 board is the weather and the wardrobe: snowflake, snowman, mitten, and scarf. The sled and ice skate — the reasons to go out at all — arrive at 6x6. The hot drink, evergreen, and mountain complete the 9x9, so the hot drink only appears once you have taken on the biggest board, which feels about right. On small screens the mitten and scarf are the woolly pair most likely to blur; the Both display mode gives every tile a small number label if they do.
House rule from our table, offered freely: one completed 9x9 earns one actual hot chocolate. Difficulty of the puzzle sets the number of marshmallows.
A snow day that needs no snow
This board earns its keep on the days winter cancels everything else: snow days, sick days home from school, and the long dark evenings after the holiday decorations have come down. A 6x6 by the window while it sleets is a genuinely pleasant way to spend fifteen minutes, and it asks nothing of anyone except the one rule.
The season changes, the rule doesn't
Every puzzle has a single solution: no repeated tile in any row, column, or box, whatever the weather. Anything else you might wonder about, from difficulty grading to the hint button, is answered on the Themed Sudoku page, where the rest of the collection is waiting out the thaw.
Winter Sudoku FAQ
Winter Sudoku has no holiday tiles — no Santa, no gifts — just snow, warm clothes, and winter scenery. It is built for the whole season, from the first frost through February, while the Christmas board belongs to December.
The set layers up in order: the 4x4 board uses the snowflake, snowman, mitten, and scarf; the sled and ice skate arrive at 6x6; and the hot drink, evergreen, and mountain only appear on the full 9x9.
Yes. The display selector switches between pictures, numbers, or both. Both mode adds a small number label to each tile, which helps when the mitten and scarf start to look alike at small sizes.