Hitori (from Japanese " Hitori ni shite kure "; literally " let me alone ") is played on a grid of squares. At the beginning, each cell contains a number. The goal is to paint out some cells so that there are no duplicate numbers in any row or column, similar to the solved state of a Sudoku puzzle (except with black squares added to the grid). Orthogonal connections are important as well; paintedout (black) cells cannot be connected orthogonally, and the other cells must be connected orthogonally in a single group (i.e. no two black squares can be adjacent to each other, and all un-painted squares must be connected, horizontally or vertically, to create a single shape).