Free printable Domino Search with answers
A Domino Search is a complete set of dominoes laid out in a rectangle with the boundaries rubbed out. Every pip is printed; what is missing is the lines. Draw them back in so that each piece of the set appears exactly once, which is the only rule there is and the only one you need.
By size
The size of the set is what makes a Domino Search harder, and measurably so: the chain of forced deductions runs about eleven times longer on a double-eight than on a double-four. Start small and work up.
Easy Domino Search
Free printable easy domino puzzles with answers. A double-four set on a small grid, so most pieces are forced. Print with the answer. No sign-up.
Medium Domino Search
Free printable medium domino puzzles with answers. A double-five set, where the checklist starts doing the work.
Double-six Domino Search
Free printable double-six domino puzzles with answers. The standard set, twenty-eight pieces on a seven by eight grid.
Hard Domino Search
Free printable hard domino puzzles with answers. A double-seven set on an eight by nine grid, with longer chains.
Evil Domino Search
Free printable evil domino puzzles with answers. A double-eight set, the biggest we print, and the longest chains. Still exactly one answer.
By audience
The rules take one sentence and most people already own the set, which makes this an unusually easy puzzle to hand someone.
Domino Search with a checklist
Free printable domino puzzles with a tick list of the whole set under every grid, so you can cross each piece off as you find it.
Domino Search for beginners
Free printable domino puzzles for beginners with answers. Learn the two moves on a small set, with the answer on page two.
Large print Domino Search
Free printable large print domino puzzles with answers. A small set printed big, for easy reading. No sign-up.
One answer, every time
This is the guarantee that is genuinely hard to make here, and the reason most free domino puzzles are not worth printing. Most layouts of a set can be split more than one way: measured across thousands, between one in forty and one in two hundred pins a single answer. The rest look perfectly reasonable and have a printed solution that is simply one of several. Every puzzle here is from that small minority, checked by the same solver our Publisher Studio uses. The answer prints at the back.
How to solve a domino search
Every piece of a complete domino set is laid out in the grid with the boundaries rubbed out. Draw them back in so that each piece appears exactly once, which is the only rule there is.
The method
- 1Start with the pieces that only fit one way. Run down the checklist and ask where each piece could possibly go. A double, or any pair of values that sit next to each other only once on the whole board, is settled before you have drawn anything.
- 2Then look at cells rather than pieces. Each cell has to belong to some domino. When all but one of its neighbours have been taken, the one left is forced, whatever piece it turns out to be. This is the move that keeps a board going after the obvious pieces are gone.
- 3Cross each piece off as you place it. That is what the checklist under the grid is for. It is not bookkeeping, it is the solve: a piece you have already used cannot be used again, and that is usually what rules out the next candidate.
- 4Watch for a cell being cut off. If a cell ends up with no uncovered neighbour, something earlier is wrong. The same goes for a piece whose every position has been built over. Both are worth checking before you go further.
- The one rule people get wrong
- A piece is used once and only once. Two 4-6s in the finished grid is not a near miss, it means a boundary somewhere else is in the wrong place.
- What the answer page shows
- The same grid with every domino outlined.
- How the grades differ
- A bigger set, and a layout chosen for a longer chain of deductions. Most random layouts of a set have more than one answer; the ones printed here are the small minority that have exactly one.
- Good for
- Anyone who likes crossing things off a list as they go.
Make one now
Pick a set, then print the puzzle and its answer. No sign-up, no watermark.