On 12 August 2025, LinkedIn added Mini Sudoku to its collection of daily games. It is the professional network's sixth "thinking-oriented" game, joining titles such as Queens, Tango and Zip, the last of which arrived in March 2025. The puzzles were developed with Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle magazine that gave sudoku its name, and Thomas Snyder, a three-time World Sudoku Champion (2007, 2008 and 2011) who also designs several of LinkedIn's other puzzles.
How the game works
- Smaller grid: Mini Sudoku uses a 6x6 grid instead of the classic 9x9, with the digits 1 to 6. As LinkedIn's help page explains, each row, column and shaded region must contain every number exactly once.
- One puzzle a day: a new puzzle appears every day at midnight Pacific Time.
- Short sessions: puzzles are designed to be finished in about two to three minutes.
- Weekly difficulty curve: Monday's puzzle is the easiest, and difficulty rises through the week.
- Social features: as with LinkedIn's other games, players can keep streaks, share results and compare times on leaderboards with connections, schools and companies.
The numbers behind LinkedIn Games
In its announcement, LinkedIn reported that, more than a year after its games launched, 86% of people who play return the next day and 82% are still playing a week later. Social Media Today noted that these retention figures were slightly higher than LinkedIn's previous report and that the company has said Gen Z members are its biggest game players. LinkedIn has not published exact daily player numbers.
Why this matters for sudoku fans
The launch is interesting for three reasons. First, it shows that the "one puzzle a day" format, popularised by newspaper puzzle pages and later by apps, has become a standard engagement tool for large platforms. A shared daily puzzle gives people something to talk about and a reason to come back.
Second, the choice of a 6x6 grid is a deliberate design decision. A smaller grid lowers the barrier for newcomers and fits a short break, but it still requires real logic: scanning, eliminating candidates and spotting where a number is forced. The 6x6 format has also appeared in recent research; for example, a 2025 University of Colorado Boulder study used about 2,300 6x6 sudokus to test whether AI can explain its reasoning.
Third, working with Nikoli and a world champion signals that quality of puzzle design still matters. Hand-crafted puzzles with a single logical path feel very different from randomly generated ones, even on a small grid.
If you enjoy a daily routine, you can do the same on our site: the daily sudoku offers a fresh puzzle every day, and when 6x6 starts to feel too easy, the full 9x9 puzzles in our sudoku section come in several difficulty levels, from beginner to master.
Mini Sudoku is free to play for LinkedIn members in the LinkedIn app and on the desktop site. Features and availability may change over time, so check LinkedIn's help page for the current rules.