A solved sudoku with eighteen printed clues. Take away as many clues as you can: each one may come out only while the grid still has exactly one answer. Nothing goes back, so the order is everything.
Today’s perfect is 9 clues left standing.
Whittle is a free daily puzzle from Mind Loft, and it is a sudoku played backwards. Every other sudoku hands you an empty grid and asks you to fill it. Whittle hands you a finished 6 by 6 grid with eighteen of its digits printed as clues, and asks you to take clues away. A clue can come out only while the grid still has exactly one answer, so the whole game is deciding which one to lift next.
The solution is on show from the first second, because Whittle never asks what the answer is. It asks what the grid can survive losing. Nothing goes back once it is out, and the day ends the moment not one of the clues left can come out, so the order you choose is the score. Every board carries the proven fewest clues any order can leave, and reaching it is a perfect ten.
A new board drops every day at midnight Eastern, and Sunday is the least forgiving deal of the week. No app, no signup, play free in your browser, keep a streak, and race the leaderboard. Want to fill a grid in instead? Try Sixes, the mini sudoku on this same board, Suds, our classic 9 by 9, and Cages, the killer sudoku.