How to play
How to play Meowdoku
Meowdoku is a colour-region logic puzzle. You seat one cat in every coloured area, one in every row and column, and no two cats may touch — not even at a corner. That is the entire ruleset. Everything below is about applying it fast.
Official app by Oakever Games4.8 · 382K ratings10M+ downloads
The four rules
Meowdoku has exactly four rules
No arithmetic, no guessing, no hidden mechanics. Every Meowdoku puzzle is solved by applying these four checks until the board is full.
One cat per colour
Each coloured region of a Meowdoku board holds exactly one cat. Start with the smallest region: a two-cell colour has only two possible homes for its cat, so it is the cheapest place to begin.
One cat per row and column
A Meowdoku grid behaves like Sudoku in one respect — every row and every column contains exactly one cat. Once a cat sits in a row, every other cell of that row is dead.
Cats never touch
Two cats may not share an edge or a corner. One cat in Meowdoku eliminates all eight surrounding cells, which is where most of your deductions come from.
Logic, not guessing
Every Meowdoku level has exactly one solution and can be reached by elimination alone. If you find yourself guessing, a constraint is still waiting to be used.
First board
Your first Meowdoku board, in three taps
Nothing to install and no account needed to try a board here. Tap to cross out, double-tap to seat a cat.
Double-tap to seat a cat
Double-tap an empty cell and a cat moves in. If that cell shares a row, column or colour with a seated cat — or touches one diagonally — Meowdoku refuses the tap and shakes the cell, so the board can never turn into a mess.
Tap once for a cross
A single tap crosses the cell out: your private note that this position is finished. Tap again to clear it. Crosses are notes only, they never block a real cat, so mark freely.
Fill the board
Seated the wrong cat? Double-tap it to take it back. When every colour, row and column holds exactly one cat and nothing touches, the Meowdoku board clears itself. Undo is always one tap away, so experiment.
Board tools
The four tools on a Meowdoku board
Undo, hint and restart sit under the board. The fourth is not in the toolbar at all — it is the cross you tap into a cell, the thing Sudoku players call a pencil mark.
Undo: take back the last move
Undo steps back through your last cat or cross and keeps going all the way to the opening board. Crosses are undoable too, because it records actions, not just cats.
Hint (lightbulb): circle the next cell
Tap the lightbulb and the board circles one cell that can hold a cat, then fades after two seconds. It shows that this cell works, not the whole solution — and on this site hints are unlimited and cost nothing.
Restart: wipe the board
Restart clears every cat and cross you placed, returns the board to its opening position and resets the timer. Stuck twice on the same level, restarting beats undoing your way back.
Pencil marks: the cross is your draft
What Sudoku calls a pencil mark or draft note is just a single tap here: a cross means you have ruled that cell out. Tap again to clear it — it is only a note, it never blocks a cat and it is never counted as a mistake.
Common mistakes
Four habits that stall a Meowdoku board
These are the patterns that cost new players the most time. Each one has a one-line fix.
Starting in the middle
The middle of a Meowdoku board is the least constrained area. Open with the smallest colour instead — corners and thin strips resolve first and feed the rest.
Ignoring the diagonal
Most players check rows and columns and forget that touching cats also means diagonally adjacent. Half of all Meowdoku dead ends come from this single oversight.
Guessing to break a stall
If a Meowdoku board feels stuck, the answer is never a guess. Re-read the four rules against the emptiest region; a forced cell is almost always hiding there.
Erasing instead of crossing
Deleting a wrong cat loses the information. Turn it into a cross instead, so you can see which cells you have already ruled out on this Meowdoku board.
Meowdoku rules FAQ
Short answers to the questions that come up while learning the game.
Is Meowdoku the same as Sudoku?
No. Sudoku uses digits and arithmetic constraints; Meowdoku uses colours, rows, columns and adjacency. The only shared idea is that every row and column holds exactly one of something.
Why do the cats have to avoid diagonals?
It is the rule that makes Meowdoku solvable without guessing. If cats could touch diagonally, many boards would have several valid answers, and elimination would stop working.
Does every Meowdoku level really have one answer?
Yes. Each of the 350 levels in this guide has been checked against the four rules, and only one arrangement satisfies all of them.
How big do Meowdoku boards get?
Boards range from 4×4 with four colours up to 11×11 with eleven. Difficulty tracks size: 4×4 and 5×5 are warm-ups, 8×8 is the sweet spot, 10×10 and 11×11 are expert territory.
Can I play Meowdoku without downloading anything?
Yes — the board at the top of the homepage runs in the browser with all 350 levels unlocked. The official Meowdoku app adds daily puzzles, hearts and offline play.
Where is the official Meowdoku app?
The game is published by Oakever Games and is free on the App Store and Google Play. This guide links only to those two official listings and hosts no APK files.
What happens when I get stuck on a Meowdoku level?
Tap the hint button (the lightbulb under the board) first — it circles one cell that can hold a cat. If you still cannot move forward, open the level archive, find the level number and compare boards: the difference is almost always one unmarked diagonal.
Is Meowdoku free?
Yes. The official app is free to download on both stores, and every level guide on this site is free to read with no account.
Now try it on a real board
Rules are cheap. Open level 1 and see how the four checks feel in your hands.