Greater-Than Grid Unblocked

Greater-Than Grid looks like a plain number square until you notice the little arrows wedged between some of the cells. Those signs are almost the only clues you get. Your job is to place digits so each row and column holds every number once, and every sign tells the truth about its two neighbors. Known in Simon Tatham’s collection as Unequal and written by James Harvey, it also includes a second rule set with bars instead of signs. You can play the whole thing unblocked here, from tiny warm-up boards to seriously stubborn 7x7 grids.

How a Board Works

A board of size N uses the digits 1 through N. On a 5x5 grid, that means 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 appear once in each row and once in each column.

Unequal mode. Signs between squares behave like less-than and greater-than symbols. On easier levels you get many signs; on harder ones, some are left out. A handful of squares may already hold digits.

Adjacent mode. Short bars replace the signs. A bar means the two digits are one apart. Every bar is drawn, so the absence of a bar is a clue as well: those two squares cannot hold neighbors like 2 and 3.

Click a square and type to place a digit, or right-click first to jot notes. When every rule is met, the grid flashes.

Greater-Than Grid controls

To do this	Keyboard	Mouse	Touch
Write a digit	Arrow keys to move, then type the digit	Click a square, then type a digit	Tap a square, then tap a digit button
Toggle a small note	Enter switches the cursor to pencil mode, then type a digit	Right-click a square, then type a digit	Set Tap to Pencil mark (or press and hold a square), then tap a digit
Empty a square	Space, Backspace or 0	—	Tap the square, then Clear
Auto-fill all notes / auto-fill and prune obvious clashes	M / H	—	—
Dim a sign you are done with	Shift or Ctrl + arrow key next to the clue	Click the sign	Tap the sign
New puzzle, undo, redo	N, U, R	Menu buttons above the grid	Menu buttons above the grid

Reasoning Tricks Worth Learning

Rather than a checklist, here is how a typical solve unfolds.

Begin at the extremes. Any square on the small end of a sign can never be N, and any square on the big end can never be 1. On a 4x4 board that alone strips options from half the grid.

Next, follow chains. When three squares are linked by signs that all point the same way, the lowest must be at most N minus 2 and the highest at least 3. Longer chains squeeze even harder, and a chain of N squares fixes them all.

Look for a square that sits on the small side of every sign touching it. It is lower than all of its neighbors, which very often makes it a 1 or a 2. The reverse holds for squares on the big side of everything.

Then let the row and column rule finish the job. Once a 4 is placed, no other square in that line can be 4, and that often collapses a whole row.

In Adjacent mode, spend time on the missing bars. A 1 with no bars around it means none of its neighbors can be 2.

Pressing H early saves a lot of typing on 6x6 and 7x7 boards, and dimming used signs helps you see what is left.

Good For

This suits anyone who likes number placement puzzles but wants a twist beyond plain rows and columns. Sessions can be five minutes or forty, depending on size. If arithmetic clues appeal more, try Math Cage Grid, or test your sightline logic in Skyscraper Sightlines.