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How Many Pals?A Minesweeper-style logic puzzle with pets
Count each pet's pals their own way and place them right.
How Many Pals? is a logic puzzle where every square on the board holds one pet - a cat, a hamster, a rabbit or a dog - and your job is to work out which one. Some pets are already in place with a number in a speech bubble. That number is how many friends of the same kind the pet can count. The twist is that each pet counts in its own way: a cat looks at all 8 squares around it, a hamster only up, down, left and right, a rabbit only at the 4 diagonals, and a dog looks along straight lines until another pet blocks its view.
Game overview
What is How Many Pals??
Every board has exactly one answer and was checked by a solver, so you never need to guess. 300 boards in 15 chapters introduce the pets step by step, from a small 4x4 living room to 6x6 boards with all four pets and line counts. When you get stuck, a hint tells you why a square has to be a certain pet, not just where it goes.
At a glance
- Pick a pet at the bottom of the screen, then tap an empty square to place it.
- A number in a speech bubble is how many same-kind pals that pet counts.
- Cats count the 8 squares around them, hamsters up, down, left and right, rabbits the 4 diagonals, and dogs whatever they can see in a straight line.
- You have three hearts. A wrong pet costs one, and the square then shows the right pet.
The rules in one minute
Every square on a How Many Pals? board holds exactly one pet: a cat, a hamster, a rabbit or a dog. Your job is to work out which pet goes where. A few pets start on the board with a number in a speech bubble, and that number is how many friends of the same kind the pet can count. Friends of other kinds do not count.
What makes the puzzle work is that each kind of pet counts in its own way, so the same number means something different on a cat than on a dog. Every board has exactly one answer, and each one was checked by a solver so that it can be finished by reasoning alone.
How each pet counts
Counts cats in all 8 squares around it, corners included.
Counts hamsters in the 4 squares directly up, down, left and right.
Counts rabbits in the 4 diagonal squares only.
Looks up, down, left and right in straight lines and counts the dogs it can see. Another pet blocks the view.
From chapter 4 you will also see line counts next to some rows and columns. A line count shows a pet and a number, and it means that row or column holds exactly that many of that pet.
Controls
Choose a pet from the row at the bottom, then tap an empty square.
Press and hold an empty square to mark it with the chosen pet as a candidate. Memos cost nothing, and holding again removes them.
Tap a pet with a number to light up the squares it counts. For a dog, the light stops at pets that are already on the board.
Tap a card in the strip above the board, or a line count, to see the rule in one sentence.
The first time a new pet or line counts appear, the game stops for a short demo that shows exactly which squares are counted. You can play with a mouse on a computer too, and on a wide window the game switches to a wide layout with the board in the middle.
Hearts and mistakes
Because each board has only one answer, the game knows at once when a pet is in the wrong place. You lose one of your three hearts, and the square fills in with the pet that really belongs there, marked with a small dot so you can look back at it later. Memos are free, so use them whenever you are not sure.
If all three hearts are gone, you can start the board again from the beginning. A board in progress is saved as you play, so you can leave and come back to it later.
15 chapters, 300 boards
The chapters bring in the pets step by step. The Living Room starts with cats and hamsters on boards as small as 4x4, the Meadow adds rabbits, the Yard brings in dogs, and from the Park all four pets play together with line counts. The first five chapters have 12 boards each and the other ten have 24, mixing different pets and growing up to 6x6.
Boards open in order: clear one and the next one unlocks, and finishing a chapter opens the next. Later boards sometimes ask you to imagine a pet in a square and follow it until something does not fit, which is still pure logic, not guessing.
Daily puzzle
A new board opens every day on the calendar. Weekday puzzles are a little gentler and weekend ones are harder, on 5x5 or 6x6 boards. You can go back and play days you missed, and if you finish every day of a month, that month's trophy turns gold.
Hints that explain why
You get three hints on every board. A hint does more than point at a square: it highlights the clue it used and says why, for example that a hamster needs two hamster friends, has already found one and has only one empty square left. Press Apply to place that pet, or close the card and do it yourself.
Clearing missions, such as your first board, ten boards, a whole chapter or seven daily puzzles, earns bonus hints. There are 12 missions in all, and bonus hints are used once the three hints for a board are gone. Finish a board with no mistakes and no hints and it is marked PERFECT.
Tips for new players
A 0 tells you that none of the counted squares is that pet, which often clears a whole area at once.
A 2 on a cat and a 2 on a rabbit point to very different squares. Tap the clue to see its range before you decide.
A dog's count stops at the first other pet in each direction, so placing any pet next to a dog can change what it sees.
A wrong pet costs a heart. If you are down to two candidates, hold the square to note them and keep reasoning elsewhere.
The reason in a hint is usually a pattern you will meet again on later boards.
Why players come back
Features
- 300 solver-checked boards in 15 chapters, each with exactly one answer
- Four pets with four ways of counting, plus row and column line counts in later chapters
- A new puzzle every day on the calendar, 12 missions and bonus hints
- Hints that explain the reason, no timer, 11 languages - free in your browser
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Is How Many Pals? free?
Yes. You can play it for free right here in your browser, and there is nothing to buy.
Will I ever have to guess?
No. Every board has exactly one answer and was checked by a solver so that it can be reached by reasoning. If you feel stuck, there is a logical next step somewhere on the board.
Is it like Minesweeper?
The number clues work in a similar way, since each number counts the squares around it. The difference is that nothing is hidden or explodes: every square holds a pet, and each kind of pet counts its friends differently.
Is my progress saved?
Yes. Your cleared boards and a board in progress are saved automatically in this browser. Clearing the site data for this page starts over.
Which languages are supported?
How Many Pals? is available in 11 languages, including English, Korean and Japanese.
