Going into the East to find us another puzzle to talk about we face a very popular one, that not too long ago was one of the most played everywhere around the globe, we talk about Sudoku.
It's been said that Sudoku as we know it today has been most likely designed by Howard Garns, a puzzle constructor from Indiana. Publishing it in 1979 in Dell Magazines with the name Numbers Place.
Later introduced in Japan with the name Suji wa dokushin ni kagiru (roughly translates to the digits must be single) which in turn was shortened to Sudoku.
General view:
Objective:
The objective is pretty simple, fill all the squares with numbers ranging from 1 to 9, when you have all of them filled, you solve it.
Difficulty:
Now here's the tricky part, its not only just filling in the squares there are rules about that, firstly there can't be any number repetition in a row or column, meaning you have to be careful not to have two 5's or 7's in the same row or column. Next thing to take in consideration is that you can't repeat a number inside any of the 3x3 squares that form the big puzzle square. The puzzle setter gives a partial solution as a starting point.
Variations:
The existing variations of Sudoku puzzles are really diverse for such a simple puzzle game:
- Hexadecimal - using the letters A to F as well as the numbers.
- Pentomino regions - using regions composed of 9 squares.
- Mini - just a miniaturized version of the original
- Cross Sum - where the hints are given by cross sums of elements
- Alphabetic - with letters instead of numbers
Benefits from Sudoku:
As well as brain training it is thought that numbers puzzle games help prevent the advance of Alzheimer's and offers comfort for short-term illness thanks to the therapeutic thought pattern it involves.
Puzzler Approved!
(partial source)
0 comments:
Post a Comment