Posts tagged magazines
Sudoku Xtra magazine issue 4
Feb 25th
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 Specials: Sudoku 25×25 Volume 1
Feb 5th
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 added a purchase mechanism to SudokuXtra.com in fact!
I’ve decided that I’m going to make a series of similar books of particular requested puzzles, all of which will be branded as “Sudoku Xtra Specials”. In this way I can stay organised by keeping all of my download/printed content under the ‘Sudoku Xtra’ heading. It means that you’ll always be able to find all of my new content in one place, without searching around my various sites.
This book is probably the nicest collection of 25×25 puzzles you can find, if you’re a fan of such things. Every puzzle has really nice 8-way symmetry – having noticeable patterns in puzzles like this is pretty unusual, and it can help with the solve too. Just as in my magazines, I’ve thought about what’s sensible in a puzzle like this so they can all be solved without needing pencilmarks. How exactly would you go about making A-Y pencilmarks in each individual square anyway?!
If you get hold of it please do let me know any thoughts you have on it. In the same way as for Sudoku Xtra magazine, it’s designed to be printed at home on either an all-together or a page-by-page basis. And if you get a pre-printed version from Lulu or Amazon.com (already complete but waiting on listing now) then it’s on a large A4 (Lulu) or 8″x10″ (Amazon) page, so there’s plenty of room to write in the solutions.
If there are other books of puzzles you’d like to see, please let me know in the comments here or on the Sudoku Xtra forums – feel free to repeat any requests you’ve made before! Next up is 16×16 Sudoku but after that it’s all open. I was thinking of doing Inequality Sudoku third, but what do you think?
Sudoku Xtra issue 3 now available!
Jan 25th
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
Dec 23rd
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
Nov 20th
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
Nov 18th
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
Nov 18th
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!
SudokuXtra.com magazine downloads
Nov 14th
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.
Sudoku Xtra website
Nov 14th
Just a quick update to my previous post – there is now a preview of issue 1 available on SudokuXtra.com.
Sudoku Xtra Complete
Nov 13th
Sudoku Xtra issue 1 is now ready! It won’t appear on Amazon.com for up to a week or so – it takes a while for them to update their databases and so on, but it is on Lulu.com already if you want a printed version. For the printed version it will cost £4.99 for UK customers, but Lulu do charge postage and packaging on top of that. (Lulu do however often have discount vouchers, so you might manage to get some money off the total).
The magazine is 44 pages long, each page 8 inches by 10 inches (20cm by 25cm), and with exactly 100 puzzles in. It prints really well on both A4 and Letter paper, either 1-up (one page per sheet) or 2-up (two pages per sheet) as you prefer. There is a small preview on the Lulu site if you’d like to see what you’re getting (or read back through previous posts here too!). If you order the printed Lulu version you will actually get some extra blank pages at the back to make it up to their minimum page count for an A4 publication, so ignore the page count on the Lulu description.
Click here for a printed copy of the magazine: Sudoku Xtra issue 1 on Lulu
I haven’t yet set up the subscriber ordering site (it will be at SudokuXtra.com hopefully within 24 hours), but if you want to get in right away you can click directly on the Paypal buttons below, and then I will email you a PDF version of the magazine within 24 hours. Once the website is up and running you’ll receive the magazine immediately, so this is just temporary for the next day or two.
If you’re in the US or Canada and want a printed copy you have three choices: wait for it to appear on Amazon in a week or more (you might want to do this to get free delivery as part of a larger order), order from Lulu using the link above, or (for the 8″ x 10″ Amazon.com version but without the option of free postage) order a printed copy of Sudoku Xtra from CreateSpace.com instead, who supply the printed copies for Amazon (in fact they’re owned by Amazon too).
However the best option of all for me – the one where I get most money from the sale – is to order a download version and print it yourself. You can print either the whole magazine or just the pages you choose. If you’d like to do this you also have the option to subscribe for a year (12 issues) for the price of 11 issues, if you’re keen! This also insures you against any price rises that might happen in the coming year. Just click one of the four Paypal purchase buttons below.
Note that when buying on Paypal you can click the ‘Continue’ link next to “Don’t have a Paypal account?” to pay directly with a credit card – you don’t need to create a Paypal account if you don’t already have one. The checkout process will say ‘PuzzleMix.com’, which is another of my sites.
| Issue 1 @ £3.99 GBP | Issue 1 @ $5.99 USD |
Or for a 12-issue subscription:
| Issues 1-12 @ £43.89 GBP | Issues 1-12 @ $65.89 USD |
Thanks in advance, and I hope you enjoy the magazine!
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