Sudoku - The New Number Puzzle Trend

Following through the development of this now popular puzzle trend around the world, the game of Sudoku first gained an audience world wide in 1979. They were originally printed in Dell Magazines as part of their puzzle collections “Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games” and rather it being called Sudoku as it is known now, Dell put it in their magazines under the heading of “Number Place”. Upon further investigation it was found that the author was a retired architect named Howard Garns and although the puzzles did not actually bear his name on them, a further investigation found that the Dell publications always named Garns as a contributor to these publications and those which always contained a game of Sudoku inside and those that did not have Sudoku puzzles inside then Garns name was omitted from the contributors list. Therefore the puzzle of who the author of their Sudoku games was solved.

The name Sudoku really stands for the basic puzzle rule of the game, that is to say single digits only. Throughout Japan the Sudoku puzzles were being given a much wider distribution as they were being produced not only daily by also in magazines by various companies. Computer programmers such as Loadstar Publishing were the first to produce a computer based version of Sudoku called “Dig Hunt” and not long after this many other programmers and dedicated Sudoku puzzle enthusiasts produced their own such programs such as Sudoku Puzzle Generators, Sudoku Solvers and now you can even play Sudoku online if you wish.

Varieties of Sudoku — The Craze Just Got Crazier

Standard Sudoku: This is the original sudoku game (also called Number Place). It is also referred to as a 3×3 (3 mini-grids across, 3 mini-grids down). Each mini-grid, row, and column must contain the numbers 1 through 9.

Sudoku 4×4 and 5×5: This is similar to a standard sudoku, but there are either 4 mini-grids across and down, or 5 mini-grids across and down. The 5×5 version uses both numbers and letter. Over again, no duplicate letters or numbers are permitted in rows, columns, or mini-grids.

Samurai Sudoku: Typically, 5 standard sudoku puzzles are joined together in the middle.

Killer Sudoku: A killer sudoku requires simple adding.

Irregular Sudoku: These puzzles do not have square mini-grids; they are “irregular” in shape but must still contain all the numbers 1 though 9. Standard row and column rules apply. As time goes on, sudoku authors create new sudoku variations and even combine the above sudoku games into a new puzzle. Imagine a Killer Sudoku X Samurai with Irregular mini-grids.