GridWits

Light Up techniques

9 techniques, all of which the solver can spot for you as a Smart Hint. Each one has a worked example.

Easy

Already Lit

A cell that is already lit can never hold a bulb — whatever lights it would be looking straight at it.

Clue Satisfied

A clue with all the bulbs it asked for is finished: every other cell touching it is empty.

Clue Full

When a clue has exactly as many free neighbours left as bulbs still to place, all of them are bulbs.

Only Light Source

An unlit cell with only one cell left that could light it: that cell holds a bulb.

Medium

Crowding a Clue

A bulb that would blind more of a clue's remaining neighbours than the clue can spare is impossible.

Hard

Don't Blind a Cell

A bulb that would blind every remaining source of some unlit cell is impossible.

Expert

Paired Clues

Two clues that share neighbours, or whose neighbours see each other, often leave only one arrangement they both allow.

Linked Sources

A numbered clue and a dark cell's possible light sources can constrain one another just like a pair of clues.

Extreme

Trial and Refutation

Try a cell both ways: reject a branch that fails, or keep any other mark both surviving branches agree on.