Posts tagged Jigsaw

Jigsaw Sudoku 6×6


Jigsaw 6×6 puzzle 2

Jigsaw 6×6 puzzle 1
I just made some Jigsaw Sudoku puzzles for a book and had a couple spare which I thought I’d post here.  Just place A to F once each into every row, column and bold-lined jigsaw shape.

Sudoku [Jigsaw] 6×6


Sudoku 6×6 puzzle

Jigsaw 6×6 puzzle

I had a couple of 6×6 Sudoku puzzles left over when making issue 58 of Sudoku Pro magazine, so I thought I’d post them here.

Just place 1-6 into each row, column and bold-lined area.

Toroidal Killer Toroidal Jigsaw Sudoku


Toroidal Killer Jigsaw Toroidal puzzle

A while back someone asked for some variant toroidal patterns on PuzzleMix, so I was just adding a couple of them to the daily puzzles section when it occurred to me that I could put up a few toroidal killer sudoku too, for a change.  However I then realised that the code which creates the HTML will need editing to cope with toroidal regions, but I knew my PDF code was more flexible… and then I thought it would be great to mix this with some toroidal jigsaw regions too… and here’s the somewhat confusing result!  A Toroidal Killer with Toroidal Jigsaw regions.

Now if you enjoy this twisted beast let me know, otherwise I probably won’t make any more of them! :)

Full rules:

  • Place 1 to 9 in each row, column and bold-lined jigsaw region
  • Place numbers so that the dashed-line cages add to the total given
  • No number can repeat in a dashed-line cage.
  • Some jigsaw regions and cages ‘wrap around’ the outside the puzzle, continuing at the start/end of the same row/column

Good luck! :)

Jigsaw Killer Sudoku


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 good idea to post one of these puzzles here – they can be quite tricky, at least until you get your head around the difference between these and regular Killer!

The rules are simple:

  • Place 1 to 9 in each row, column and bold-lined region
  • Place numbers in the dashed-line cages that add up to the given total for that cage
  • No number can be repeated in a dashed-line cage

Good luck! :)

Inequality Sudoku


Inequality 2-grid Samurai Sudoku

Inequality jigsaw 6×6 Sudoku puzzle

On the Sudoku Xtra forums Marilyn suggested the great idea of an inequality Samurai puzzle for issue 2, so I’ve been having a look at doing this. And here’s the first result!

I’ve started off with a regular 6×6 jigsaw Sudoku, but have added inequalities, just to get you warmed up, then I’ve included my first ever Samurai Inequality Sudoku puzzle, albeit a 2-grid one for now.

You’ll notice in both puzzles here that I have included all inequality arrows, so you have far more information than you need – this is deliberate, to make them easier! On the 6×6 puzzle there are five really nice diamond shapes in the centre area, but in general I think having all the arrows is ugly (or lazy!) so I don’t plan to include them again in future (just as I’ve never included them in past published inequality/Futoshiki puzzles).

The rules of Inequality Sudoku are pretty simple – just place the numbers as you would in a regular Sudoku (or regular Jigsaw Sudoku in the 6×6 case), but obey the less-than (”<”) and greater-than (”>”) signs between squares.  These indicate that the value of the number in a square is either less than or greater than its neighbour. And that’s it! :)

Good luck!

Jigsaw Sudoku


Sudoku Jigsaw Medium puzzle

I’m adding features back in to my new puzzle assistant front end code so today I thought I’d post the standard Jigsaw Sudoku puzzle that was my test subject – just fit 1-9 into each row, column and bold-lined shape.

Two-away Jigsaw 8×8


Two-away Jigsaw 8×8 puzzle

Continuing with Two-away puzzles, I thought today I’d post a somewhat smaller challenge – an 8×8 Jigsaw Sudoku version.

The rules are pretty much what you’d imagine: place 1 to 8 into each row, column and bold-lined jigsaw piece. Numbers with a grey bar between them must have a difference of 2 (e.g. 1&3) and numbers without a grey bar between must have a difference that’s not 2. (This is important to ensure a unique solution!)

Good luck! :)

Two-away Samurai Jigsaw


Two-away Samurai Jigsaw puzzle

Here’s a puzzle for the weekend – it’s a 5-grid samurai sudoku where in the corner grids a couple of the 3×3 regions have had their outlines tweaked to turn them into jigsaw sudoku puzzles, with full 8-way symmetry.  There are very few givens, which means you’ll need to take full advantage of the two-away markers that are also in the grid.  The grey rectangles indicate all neighbouring squares where the difference is 2 (e.g. 1&3 or 6&8) – even without precise values they can also be useful for quickly indicating where a chain of squares are all odd or all even.

Good luck! :)

Double Toroidal Killer Sudoku Pro 8×8


Double Toroidal Killer Sudoku Pro 8×8 puzzle

This puzzle certainly won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but it’s a double toroidal killer sudoku pro.  Why double?  Because there are toroidal jigsaw-shaped Sudoku regions, and there are toroidal jigsaw-shaped Killer Sudoku Pro cages.  In other words, some of them wrap around the edges of the puzzle.  It’s also an 8×8 puzzle, just to keep the Killer Sudoku (Pro!) logic fresh.

The rules are as you might expect:

  • Place 1 to 8 into each row, column and bold-lined shape – some of these shapes are toroidal, so wrap from the end of one row/column to the opposite end of the same row/column
  • Place numbers into the dashed-line Killer Sudoku Pro cages so that when the given operation is applied the result is the stated number.  For ‘-’ operations start with the highest number.
  • Numbers can’t repeat in dashed-line cages, and some cages (just one in this puzzle actually) are toroidal, so wrap around the rows/columns as described above

And that’s it! :)  Good luck!

Hints:  As always with this sort of puzzle, if you shade in the 8 bold-lined regions first with different colours you’ll find it much easier to keep track of what you’re doing.  Also, all of the regions (both killer cages and bold-lined regions) have rotational symmetry order 4 – in other words, the same pattern repeats 4 times; this might help!

Shape Sudoku


3-grid Shape Jigsaw Sudoku Samurai Stack


Shape Jigsaw Sudoku 6×6

I needed to create one of these for a project elsewhere, so I thought I would post a couple of them here too – since I’d gone to the effort to make one at all!  It’s not a new Sudoku variation, but just a very simple replacement of the digits 1 to 6 with shapes.  None the less, it does make the puzzle notably harder to solve (or maybe that’s just me!).  Unless there’s demand I won’t post this variant again, but I thought it would make an interesting change just for once!

I’ve created two examples – one is a simple 6×6 jigsaw, and the other is a 3-grid 6×6 Samurai Stack.  In each case place one of each symbol  into each 6-square row and column of each underlying 6×6 grid, and also one of each symbol into all of the bold-lined jigsaw shaped pieces.

Good luck!