Sudoku

I’ve recently gotten hooked on Sudoku (like so many others, it seems). If you are into Sudoku, you should start visiting BrainBashers to get your daily dose. If the 6 available puzzles each day aren’t enough for you, then hit SuperSudoku for more (free account for 5 puzzles a day or full account for a one-time $9.70 charge for unlimited puzzles – join on their sign-up page).

If you are interested in Sudoku, but want to know more about the backstory/history of it, you should check out Wolfram’s write-up.

The Sudoku was published anonymously by Garns (1979), who created the puzzle at age 74, and then promptly relegated to obscurity. It became popular in Japan starting somewhere between 1984 and 1986 under the name “nanpure,” or Number Place. (Even today, in many Japanese publication, the puzzle is called Number Place, written in English.) The puzzle received a large amount of attention in the United States and Europe in 2005 after a regular Sudoku puzzle began appearing in the London Times. Sadly, Garns died in 1989 before getting a chance to see his creation as a worldwide phenomenon (Shortz 2005, cited in Pegg 2005).

If you still want more, you’ll have to search for it – I can’t possibly list all the good sources of games and information on the game.

I tried to include a Sudoku generator inline here, but it sadly made the rest of the site go away.  At least, it was sad for me.  So just use the above links, especially the Google search link, to find playable online versions.  And I’ll have to wish the possible extra traffic a bye-bye…   🙁

[tags]Sudoku, Suduku, Sodoko[/tags]