Bored with Sudoku?
Posted by Plaidman on May 21st, 2007
I’m sure everybody’s heard of the Sudoku by now. Y’know the one with the 3×3 grid of 3×3 smaller grids where you put in a number in each of the 81 squares so they don’t match any of the other numbers in their smaller grid, row, or column. Yea, that one. If you haven’t heard of it you really need to get out from under that rock and go to a book store or a magazine stand somewhere. Or you can use that fancy magical box you’re using to view my site to look it up. I recommend Google. Haven’t heard of that either, you say? YOU’RE HELPLESS!
Ok, for the Sudoku informed, there’s a few other number-pattern games that are really quite fun and you may find to be more challenging than Sudoku if you’re getting bored with it. Two of my favorites are Kakuro and Nurikabe.
Kakuro plays a lot like a Sudoku crossword puzzle. Each row or column is labeled with a sum (clue). The boxes associated with the clue (collectively a word) can each only be filled with one digit, and each word can not have repeating digits. Certain clues can only have one possible solution, like 17 with a two digit word can only have 8 and 9. Generally you can deduce which of the two squares gets 8 and which gets 9 by the intersecting clues. Here’s a daily Kakuro puzzle to get you started.
Still too easy? Nurikabe is quite a bit more difficult. There’s a lot of rules and strategy to solving them. Each number must be connected to an island (white blocks) of that size (including the square with the digit). No two islands may touch at any square. And the river (black squares) must be contiguous and can’t have a pool (2×2 black square). Islands marked ‘1′ can be marked black on all four sides because it’s an island of size 1. If there’s a black spot with only one edge that hasn’t been marked white, it is black because the river must be contiguous. Here’s a daily Nurikabe puzzle (with some easy smaller puzzles) if you’re up to the task of solving them.
Click the first link in the description paragraphs for a much better explanation of rules and strategy. Make sure you do some of these puzzles every day. Doing so will keep your brain exercised and healthy.