Meowdoku Level 106 Walkthrough: Squeezing a 21-Tile Mint Region

The Meowdoku Level 106 layout

The nine colors are rose, apricot, butter, matcha, mint, soda, periwinkle, lilac, and bubblegum. Apricot is the smallest region on the board, a single tile at row 2, column 8. Rose is next with only two tiles, side by side at row 1, columns 2 and 3, and butter has three tiles in an L at row 2, column 6 and row 3, columns 5 and 6. Periwinkle has five tiles along the left edge and matcha has six down the right.

Then there is mint, with twenty-one tiles wrapped around the entire top of the grid and reaching down the left side into row 4. Soda has fifteen tiles in the middle, lilac has fifteen in the bottom right, and bubblegum has thirteen along the bottom. In a cat puzzle game with a region this dominant, the small colors tucked inside it are always the clues, and here rose and butter are literally embedded in mint territory.

• Grid size: 9x9 with nine colors, rated medium.
• Smallest region: apricot, one tile at row 2, column 8.
• Largest region: mint, twenty-one tiles across the top and left of the board.
• Total solve: 21 steps including 12 crosses.

The opening: a single apricot tile

Start Meowdoku Level 106 by settling the apricot cat on row 2, column 8. The apricot region is just that one tile, so there is no decision to make and no risk to your fish. It is the kind of gift opening that makes Meowdoku welcoming even when the grid looks busy.

The follow-up is nearly as easy. That cat clears row 2 and column 8 along with its neighbours, and matcha, which runs down the right edge, loses almost everything. Matcha is left with one open tile at row 4, column 9, so your second cat goes there. Two cats down before any crossing is required, which is a common rhythm in these cat games.

The key moment: rose and butter corner the mint region

This is the heart of Meowdoku Level 106. Mint still has a huge number of tiles, and no amount of staring at it will help, so look at the small colors instead. Rose has only its two tiles at row 1, columns 2 and 3, and both sit in row 1. That means the row 1 cat must be the rose cat, which is technique T3, a color locked to one line. Cross out the mint tiles at row 1, column 1 and row 1, columns 4, 5, and 6.

Now do the same with butter. Its remaining tiles all sit in row 3, so row 3 belongs to butter. Cross out the mint tile at row 3, column 1, the soda tiles at row 3, columns 2 and 3, and the mint tile at row 3, column 4. Between the two locks, mint has lost its entire presence in rows 1 and 3, and rows 2 and 4 were already claimed by the first two cats.

Count what is left and mint has exactly one open tile, at row 5, column 6. That is your third cat, and a twenty-one-tile region has been solved without a single deduction aimed at mint itself. The butter cat then follows at row 3, column 5, because the mint cat closes off its other options. The elegance of this moment is why Level 106 is one of the more instructive brain games in the campaign.

Finishing the bottom half of the board

The lower half of Meowdoku Level 106 repeats the same pattern at a smaller scale. Soda is locked into row 6, so cross out the periwinkle tile at row 6, column 1 and the bubblegum tile at row 6, column 4. Periwinkle is then locked into row 7, so cross out the bubblegum tile at row 7, column 4 and the lilac tile at row 7, column 7.

Those four crosses give lilac a single open tile at row 8, column 7, which is your fifth cat. After that, switch from thinking about colors to thinking about lines: column 4 has one open tile left, so the bubblegum cat goes to row 9, column 4, and column 1 has one open tile left, so the periwinkle cat goes to row 7, column 1. Both of those are technique T2, the last open tile in a row or column.

Soda then takes row 6, column 3 as its last option, and rose finally lands at row 1, column 2. It is worth noticing that rose was the very first color you locked and the very last cat you placed. In these free online games, a color can be enormously useful to your reasoning long before you know where its own cat belongs.

Strategy for oversized regions in Meowdoku

If you take one thing from Meowdoku Level 106, let it be this: the size of a region tells you when to solve it, not how hard it will be. A twenty-one-tile mint region is not a problem to be cracked, it is a space that other colors will gradually take away from you.

Here is how to put that into practice on any board in these animal games.

• Find the small regions that sit inside the big one, since those are the ones that can be locked to a line.
• Lock a line even when the locking color has several tiles left in it; the crosses still count.
• Recount the biggest region after every lock, because it can drop from a dozen options to one very suddenly.
• Switch between region-based and line-based counting; column 4 and column 1 both solved themselves on this board.
• If a lock is not obvious, tap the hint button to reveal the next forced cat and work out why it was forced.

What is the solution to Meowdoku Level 106?

In solve order, the cats go on row 2, column 8 (apricot); row 4, column 9 (matcha); row 5, column 6 (mint); row 3, column 5 (butter); row 8, column 7 (lilac); row 9, column 4 (bubblegum); row 7, column 1 (periwinkle); row 6, column 3 (soda); and row 1, column 2 (rose).

Where do I place the first cat in Meowdoku Level 106?

Place the first cat on row 2, column 8. Apricot has only that one tile anywhere on the grid, so the apricot cat is forced there and it clears row 2 and column 8 for you at once.

How do I find the mint cat in Meowdoku Level 106?

Lock rose to row 1 and cross out the mint tiles at row 1, column 1 and row 1, columns 4, 5, and 6. Lock butter to row 3 and cross out the mint tile at row 3, column 1, the soda tiles at row 3, columns 2 and 3, and the mint tile at row 3, column 4. Mint is then left with one open tile at row 5, column 6.

Why is the rose cat placed last in Meowdoku Level 106?

Rose is locked to row 1 very early, which is what makes the mint deduction work, but that lock does not say which of its two tiles the rose cat uses. Only after the other eight cats are settled does row 1, column 2 become the single remaining option.

Is Meowdoku a free browser game?

Yes. Meowdoku is a free cat puzzle game that plays directly in your browser with nothing to install, which makes Level 106 easy to pick up whenever you want a few minutes of logic puzzle games.