7×7 · 7 cats · par 2:03
Meowdoku 7×7 — where scanning starts to pay
Forty-nine cells, seven cats, and proportionally the smallest head start on the site. This is the size where guessing at the board stops working and looking at it starts.
The stingiest board on the site, proportionally
A gift region is a one-cell region: a cat with nowhere else to go. The generator hands out one of them below size 8 and two from size 8 up — which means the 7×7 is the last size to get a single gift, and the free share of its answer is the smallest of any board here except Extreme. one of its 7 regions is a single cell, against one of its 5 regions is a single cell on the 5×5 and two of its 9 regions are single cells on the 9×9.
That is not a rounding artefact, it is the shape of the curve: the 5×5 gives away a fifth of its regions, the 7×7 a seventh, and then the 9×9 goes back up to two ninths. The 7×7 is the trough.
Region-first scanning
With one cell handed to you and forty-eight to work out, the opening matters. Regions produce a forced cat far more often than rows or columns do — measured on this ruleset, by an order of magnitude at the start of a game — so the scan worth running first is the region scan. The Meowdoku opening has the numbers, and single-candidate elimination follows the same three scans through to the end of a solve, where the row and column views finally earn their keep.
The largest region the generator will build here is 12 cells. Big regions are where the region scan goes quiet and the row and column scans take over — knowing which of the three to run is most of the skill at this size.
Where to go next
The 9×9 is the same grid a sudoku uses and, counterintuitively, a gentler start: it gives back two of its 9 regions are single cells. If you want the board to stop giving anything away, that is Extreme.
Questions
Is 7×7 harder than 9×9?
Not in size, but it starts colder. The 7×7 gives back one of its 7 regions is a single cell; the 9×9 gives back two of its 9 regions are single cells. A bigger board with a bigger head start can open faster.
How long should a 7×7 take?
Par is 2:03 — roughly double the 5×5's 1:03, which tracks the cell count rather than the edge length.
Do I need to mark cells to solve a 7×7?
Not required, but it is the difference between rescanning the board every move and reading it. Marking the cells a placed cat rules out is what turns the next single-candidate into something you spot rather than search for.