Saturday, August 13, 2005

Feed your brain

Today, I saw a book called "Sudoku" in the local bookstore, proclaiming "Revolutionary worldwide hit - wordless crosswords". If something is worldwide hit, I presumed I could also find it on Internet. And I did. The idea is extremely simple. The puzzle is always a grid of 9x9 small squares (or, in other words, 3x3 big squares, each consisting of 3x3 small squares). Some of the squares have numbers in them. For example:



Your task is always the same: "Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains all the digits 1 through 9." That's all. This might take from 10 to 30 minutes of your time. There is always only a single solution. For the problem above, the solution is:



This reminds me a little bit of my favorite old GameBoy game "Mario's Picross", also known as CrossPix, Nonograms, Griddlers, CryptoPics and under other names.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousSunday, August 14, 2005 12:52:00 AM

    I think Lidove Noviny ran the Sudoku game in the paper as well as SME in Slovakia. Pretty popular game I guess, maybe good time to try it finally.

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  2. AnonymousSunday, August 14, 2005 10:28:00 PM

    BLIK :)

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  3. AndrejMonday, August 15, 2005 9:45:00 AM

    I think that chess is better time-killer than this. Sudoku is a job for some combination machine (read: computer) not for human brain. Ok, maybe it's good for the brain of the people working as envelope sorters at a post office...

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  4. Jan Vaněk jr.Tuesday, August 16, 2005 12:10:00 PM

    Nonograms are available in any good trafika as a booklet called Zakódované obrázky, published bi-monthly or quarterly. Or used to be about two years ago, when I went through a short addiction to them.

    But it is really incredible to see somebody discovering sudoku now...

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  5. AnonymousFriday, August 19, 2005 11:45:00 PM

    If you want to try it on computer, go to

    http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/numplace/numplace.html

    It is maybe a bit too easy even on "hard", but has by far the best user interface I've seen on the internet.

    Otherwise, as othershave said - quite old "news" ;)

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