Futoshiki, the Japanese “inequality” puzzle, is sudoku with a twist of arithmetic: each row and each column holds every digit once, and the signs between neighbouring cells tell you which of the two must be larger. In a 4x4 grid, the digits are 1 to 4, and most puzzles give you no digit at all, only four to seven signs.
These eight grids fill a page each, big enough for a child’s handwriting. They are the right first step: a 4 can only sit on the open side of a sign, a 1 only on its pointed side, and from there the whole grid follows. Every puzzle has a single solution, and none needs a guess.
Part of the Futoshiki Puzzles collection, Last updated on Tue, 27 Oct 2026 17:47:15 GMT.
Look at the signs first. A cell that must be greater than another can never hold 1, and a cell that must be smaller can never hold 4; a chain of two signs pointing the same way pins the middle cell to 2 or 3. Write the possible digits small in each cell, then apply the sudoku rule: a digit used in a row or a column is crossed out everywhere else in that line. When a row has a single place left for the 4, write it; the signs around it then settle their neighbours.
The sign opens towards the larger number, like the “greater than” sign in mathematics: 3 > 1 reads “3 is greater than 1”. The pointed end always touches the smaller digit.
Because the signs alone are enough: four to seven inequalities fix the digits 1 to 4 in every row and column. A few grids give one digit to shorten the first step.