about 1 week ago - 1 comment
I wrote quite a lot yesterday about whether you “needed” the X in some Sudoku-X puzzles. I promised that I’d follow up with the result of analysing a stack of Killer Sudoku-X puzzles, and so here is that result.
I picked 64 Killer Sudoku-X puzzles (52 for the daily puzzlemix section plus 12 for the weekly More >
about 1 week ago - 1 comment
One of the perennial comments on PuzzleMix is that the diagonal ‘X’ regions aren’t needed in a particular Sudoku-X puzzle, or more commonly in Killer Sudoku X. Well, when I say “perennial” I mean to say that of the more than 400,000 puzzle plays that that comment has been made about 10 times. But an More >
about 1 week ago - 1 comment
Killer Sudoku Jigsaw puzzle
I’ve recently been working on refreshing the content for PuzzleMix.com, my play-online puzzle site, and one of the puzzle types I’ve been making is Killer Jigsaw Sudoku, where you not only have the jigsaw-shaped Killer regions but also jigsaw shapes instead of the regular 3×3 Sudoku boxes.
So I thought it would be a More >
about 1 week ago - 1 comment
Samurai-2 Odd Pair Sudoku puzzle
One of the brand new puzzles in Sudoku Xtra issue 4 is Odd-Pair Sudoku, which I wrote about last week here on my puzzle blog. As well as some regular 9×9 puzzles I also included a large 5-grid Odd-Pair Samurai puzzle, and to illustrate how the puzzle worked I included a More >
about 2 weeks ago - 2 comments
Samurai 8-grid Calcudoku puzzle
Here’s probably the largest Calcudoku puzzle you’ve ever seen! It’s made up of 8 underlying 9×9 grids, each of which must have 1 to 9 placed into each row and column, and then on top of this I’ve added the familiar Calcudoku regions.
For each Calcudoku region just place numbers such that the More >
about 2 weeks ago - 3 comments
Sudoku Odd Pairs puzzle
Now here’s something I can guarantee you won’t have seen before, because I just invented it! Well, I suppose with a world of people creating Sudoku variants it’s possible there’s been something similar before, but I’ve bought a lot of puzzle magazines and books and never come across it, so More >
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Sudoku 36×36 puzzle
Giant Sudoku puzzles are one of those things that divide people. With 25×25 puzzles some love them, whilst others simply can’t understand why anyone could ever have the patience to do them. But whatever your personal opinion, they remain popular – even Nikoli (the people who named Sudoku ‘Sudoku’) make them regularly, More >
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Sudoku 15×15 puzzle
Something plain but unusual – a Sudoku 15×15. I’m sure these must exist, but it occurred to me I’d never actually seen one. So I made one.
The rules are as you’d expect: place 1 to 9 and A to F into each row, column and 5×3 bold-lined box.
There’s no need to make More >
about 1 month ago - 1 comment
I’ve had many, many, many requests over the past years for a book of giant 25×25 Sudoku puzzles, so I have now finally made just such a book available!
Right at the moment it’s only available in printed form, but I’ll have download copies available in the next couple of days – as soon as I’ve More >
about 1 month ago - 2 comments
Samurai Killer Calcudoku puzzle
I haven’t posted much here recently because I’ve been spending my time on Sudoku Xtra, so here’s a large puzzle to fill the void a bit.
This is a five-grid Samurai Killer Calcudoku:
Place 1 to 9 into each row, column and 3×3 box of the five underlying 9×9 Sudoku grids
Place numbers into the Calcudoku dashed-line More >
about 9 months ago
Yum.
Because the puzzle regions are not square, you have to remember to ninja-leap only 2 boxes (and not 3) going up/down when using the samurai symmetry rule.
It is a nice morning workout puzzle.