Sudoku Xtra

Sudoku Xtra Issue 5

Sudoku Xtra issue 5

I’m very pleased to announce that issue 5 of Sudoku Xtra magazine is now available for download or in pre-printed form from either Amazon.com (US) or Lulu.com (recommended for rest of world).

This issue has even more puzzles than the previous ones, with a pretty mind-boggling 131 separate logic and number puzzles!

New content includes:

  • Suraromu – the latest loop puzzle from Japan
  • PivotPix (a.k.a. Tentai Show / Sym-a-Pix)
  • -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 Killer Sudoku!
  • An extra page of Yajilin, designed to help you get into the puzzle
  • Some new Sudoku combinations

Plus the regular stuff is there too, including:

  • Another Jigsaw 6×6 Variety Pack of miniature variants
  • More Sudoku at more sizes than ever before
  • Lots of Sudoku variations on a theme
  • All of the other regular puzzles, from Skyscraper to Samurais to Calcudoku to Hashi to Hanjie to Kakuro and so on…

And the generous puzzle community contributors have been as creative as ever. Just look at some of the types that are in issue 5: 

  • Kuromasu / Kurodoko
  • Sudoku Times (outside products)
  • Hexagon 25
  • Shapely Alleys and Skyscrapers
  • Modula
  • Pathfinder
  • and more!

As always, it’s designed to print well in black and white on either A4 or Letter paper, using up most of the space and without pointlessly wasting ink on large dark areas. If you have a colour printer there’s a small colour trim to each issue – this month’s is orange – but this prints fine as a greyscale. Pre-printed copies have a colour cover but black and white interior.

So check it out!

Sudoku Xtra magazine issue 4

Sudoku Xtra magazine Issue 4 cover

Issue 4 of Sudoku Xtra magazine is now with us!  I really think I might be putting too many puzzles into it, because typing up the list of content just knocked me out with how much is crammed into its 52 large-format pages!  Is too much possible?  I don’t know, but look at this enormous list:

128 puzzles in total, including several seriously giant ones.  Brand new for this issue:

  • Samurai Star Killer Sudoku Pro
  • Number Link Samurai
  • Odd Pair Sudoku
  • Samurai Odd Pair Sudoku
  • Sudoku Inequality Jigsaw
  • Jigsaw Sudoku 6×6 Variety Pack (including toroidal, inequality, X, consecutive and killer)
  • Killer Sudoku Pro Jigsaw
  • Sudoku 15×15 and Sudoku 18×18
  • Killer Sudoku 15×15
  • Odd & Even Pair Sudoku
  • Killer Sudoku Prime

Regulars from issue 3:

  • Hanjie
  • Masyu
  • Calcudoku (three times as many as in previous issues!)
  • Slitherlink
  • Consecutive Sudoku
  • Hitori
  • Samurai Star
  • Samurai Star Jigsaw
  • Number Link
  • Jigsaw Sudoku 8×8, 9×9 and 10×10
  • Toroidal Sudoku and Toroidal Inequality
  • Kakuro
  • Futoshiki
  • Killer Sudoku
  • Skyscraper
  • Skyscraper Sudoku
  • Samurai Sudoku
  • SSSS: Skyscraper Samurai Star Sudoku
  • Sudoku Inequality
  • Sudoku Extra Regions
  • Jigsaw Sudoku Extra Regions
  • Killer Sudoku Jigsaw
  • SOS: Samurai Outside Sudoku
  • Outside Sudoku
  • Sudoku 8×8
  • Sudoku 12×12 and 16×16
  • Samurai Extra Regions
  • Yajilin
  • Nurikabe

Adding to that already exhausting list still further are the community puzzles: 

  • Heyawake
  • King’s Journey (also known as Hidato[TM], Numbrix[TM] and many other names)
  • Mosaic (Minesweeper picture puzzle)
  • As Easy as ABC
  • Knight’s Tour
  • Shapely Skyscraper
  • Isolate
  • Klump

And all of this for just £3.99 or $5.99 – it really is fantastic value!

If you’d like to get hold of it just pop on over to the Sudoku Xtra website!

Sudoku Xtra issue 3 now available!

I’m really pleased to announce that issue 3 of Sudoku Xtra magazine is now available for download!

This issue is packed full of all sorts of puzzles, including SOS (Samurai Outside Sudoku!), Toroidal Inequalities and many more.  Community puzzles include picture puzzle Mosaic from Clarity Media, and some fantastic Slitherlink-Masyu cross-over puzzles called Shotgun Slitherlink from David Millar of The Griddle.  There’s also some brilliant Klump and Navigrid puzzles from Vexus Puzzle Design.

With 121 puzzles it will almost certainly take you far more than the month until issue 4 to complete, so you’d better get hold of it as soon as possible! :)

Pre-printed versions will be available in the next couple of days, but you can download and print it yourself immediately!

Sudoku Xtra issue 2 now available

Sudoku Xtra issue 2 cover

I’m very pleased to announce that as of 24 hours ago Sudoku Xtra issue 2 is available for download or ordering in printed form.

It contains a staggering 121 puzzles, with only just a few of each type so there is a huge range of variety. At just £2.95/$4.95 it really is great value, but if you’re still not sure take a look at the sample part of issue 1 still available on the Sudoku Xtra site.

New puzzles for this issue include some crazy Sudoku variants, such as Samurai Killer Calcudoku Inequality, and a whole load of novel community-supplied puzzles, including Puzzle L and Knight’s Tour.

With so many different puzzles you’re sure to find not just one but lots of puzzles you’ll enjoy, so check out Sudoku Xtra today! :)

Sudoku Xtra ‘community’ puzzles

Sudoku Xtra issue 1 is only just on sale and I’m already starting work on issue 2!

If you’ve read issue 1 then you’ll know that I’ve proposed a ‘community’ puzzle section at the back, where people get to send in their own puzzles and I will include a selection in a special section.  The idea is to try and build up the kind of puzzle community that some of the Japanese-language publications have, but which we haven’t yet seen in an English-language magazine. Hopefully it will lead to a virtuous spiral, with on the one hand people who contribute puzzles getting a larger audience for their own work whilst similarly on the other hand encouraging more people to read the magazine for the novel puzzles – and hopefully all the while encouraging more feedback too, which will help everyone.

In time for the second issue I’m not realistically expecting very many submissions – after all, it won’t be long before I need to start finalising content for issue 2, and that doesn’t give people much time to buy the magazine, think about puzzles, draw them up and submit them.  So in order to help things get going I’ve approached a few people who regularly create top-quality puzzles of their own and asked them if they’d be happy to contribute a puzzle or two to issue 2.  Therefore I’m very pleased to announce that David Millar of  The Griddle has agreed to provide a couple of his excellent designs for issue 2.  If you take a look at his site you’ll see that he regularly posts a huge variety of different puzzle types, and it will be fantastic to have some of this content to help launch the community section of Sudoku Xtra issue 2.

Now available on Amazon.com

I only just posted an update and already there’s more news: Sudoku Xtra is now available on Amazon.com

That was pretty quick, and is great news!  I already have my proof copy from them, and it looks just fantastic – lovely glossy colour cover, and fantastic quality printing within.  It’s essentially a  large size magazine printed at top book quality, and the paper it’s on is perfect for either pencil or pen solving.  It’s much better quality than a regular store puzzle magazine (particularly US ones, which are typically on very cheap and thin paper).

Website feature-ready

I’m happy with where the Sudoku Xtra website has got to now, with another update today pushing on all the material I wanted.  It will I’m sure need further work when there are multiple issues available, but for now it’s more than good enough I think.

As mentioned yesterday, the most exciting feature (other than being able to view and buy and read about the magazine!) is the new discussion forum.  It’s a pity Sudoku Pro never had one, because the old BBC MindGames one (which incidentally featured a large number of my puzzles too) was always great.  It would be brilliant if we could make the Sudoku Xtra forums just as good! Here’s hoping…

If you’ve got issue 1 (or even if you haven’t!) please feel free to let people know about it – building up a readership is of course an important part of launching a new magazine, particularly one that won’t be on shop shelves any time soon! :)

Discussion forums for Sudoku Xtra

Thanks very much to everyone who’s bought Sudoku Xtra issue 1 so far – I really appreciate it, and thanks also for your great feedback!

I’m still working on adding content to the main Sudoku Xtra site, which of course it was more important to get up and running at all in the first place rather than waiting until it was ‘finished’ to launch, and so today’s big addition is a discussion forum!

Please feel free to continue posting here about Sudoku Xtra if you would prefer, but if there’s anything you’d like to open up for discussion – or just want to chat about a particular puzzle (or even ask for help solving one!) – then the forums are probably the best place to do it.

You don’t need to register on the Sudoku Xtra site in order to post to the forums, but if you don’t you’ll be asked to type in one of those anti-spam image things each time you post – but I’ve made sure they’re very legible, so conversely fingers-crossed there won’t be any nasty problems with spam! (You should see just how much gets caught in the anti-spam message filters for this site alone – it’s quite astonishing!)

Thanks again!

Sudoku Xtra discussion forums

SudokuXtra.com magazine downloads

Well, www.sudokuxtra.com is now live – live enough that you can now go there and buy the magazine and get it immediately. So what are you waiting for?! :) As I posted earlier, there’s also a preview copy you can download if you want to check out some of what you’re getting first.

I’ll also be adding more content to sudokuxtra.com over the coming week, including a discussion forum.