Great minds think alike, Jay. I read the wikipedia article on the game on Friday and printed out the image there. I took a day and a half solving it, but I found out they can be pretty fun. Thanks for showing a web version of the game. If only there was a convient "print large size" button on the site.

I've done a few of these before... Quite fun.
The "Hard" one took me about 10 minutes...

Have any of you heard about the one which was in the Guardian which the writer claimed that a person from America or the UK CANNOT solve in less than 42 minutes (We don't fully understand how to create the patterns in our minds) ?

I want to give that one a go !!!

If any of you know where I can find it please let me know !

Cheers !

VJ

agh! mass brain leakage! I can't even get the easy one...

Hey Jay! Glad to hear you're better. These puzzles are quite fun and there are other versions with different shapes instead of 3x3 squares. Try searching for 'Latin Squares', and I'm sure you'll find a bunch. We did them in programming class a lot... I really miss programming class and wish I didn't have to take summer break.

This has kept me occupied all night...great suggestion!

This game is really fascinating. At first, before I realized how severely the game punishes guessing, I was thinking it'd be pretty simple to make an information manager app, but then I realized from there you could build a program to solve these things, since a lot of it is algorithmic (although not all of it, so it'd have to stall sometimes). Might be a fun project.

What I'm really curious about, though, is the fact that the puzzles are numbered, and just the puzzle creation algorithm in general. (Freecell does something similar with numbered games.) They can't be saved patterns because with trillions of puzzles the storage would be insane, even with relatively small pieces of data. And what determines how difficult a puzzle is in the program's mind?

This is a really great game that's given me a lot to think about. Thanks for posting it!

Obviously, I haven't read the wiki yet. :P

Argh, and they call that "easy". Only easy part is to place wrong numbers in it.

LOL at Tonypa. =)

I am so hooked on these puzzles, I printed off a few to keep in my pocket. These are so much more enjoyable than crossword puzzles. Thanks for posting this. Did I mention I am hooked. Numbers are amazing things.

Great find! Used to steal my dads Games magazine to do these puzzles when I was a kid.

Love the site, Jay! Kudos!

Hi,

I got hooked as well and have now developed a Suduko Assistant, here:

http://www.sudoku-san.com

It's intended to be an Assistant, rather than just a Solver (although it can solve them too!). It has four Daily puzzles, and the Assistant itself can be used to keep track of your work, check how you're getting on and make sensible suggestions about techniques you can use to find the next step.

Hope you like it - I'd love to hear any feedback you might have.

cheers,
Alastair

The major Estonian newspaper (we have like 3-4 big newspapers here) started to publish daily Sudoku since yesterday.

Hi mates,
Here is another, excellent online free sudoku web site...

I was introduced to SuDoku yesterday - and must admit I find them addictive. Since I am also a computergeek, I came up with a couple of algorithms to solve them by logic. Having done this I wanted to illustrate the algorithms to ... I don't know if I had anybody in mind, actually, but I had fun doing it.

If you can find the time, please give me some comments on
http://beta-160021.server1.dotnetsandbox.net

Appologize for the weird URL - I am moving it to http://www.ukodus.com in a couple of days.

Best regards,
Matthias Svane from Denmark

I've been doing these puzzles for a few weeks and am still picking up techniques. After making a lot of mistakes using pencil and paper, and having to start again from scratch, I now use this helper instead...

http://www.sudokumate.com/sudokumate.asp

hey

I use this Sudoku site for its excellent newsletter they give daily Sudoku to your mail, and you can get the answers from the site, it is very easy to use, at www.daily-sudoku.com

I'm totally hooked on Sudoku. Started it about a month ago and have greatly enjoyed discovering the various strategies while playing. I can't get enough puzzles!!!

honestly I can do the socalled evil puzzles in under 10 minutes while standing on a crowded subway. people who need hints or helper programs should be ashamed, its not a hard game at all, even a slow person can become fast with practice.

Is it possible for a SuDoKu to have more than one (unique) solution? I.e. given the starting black numbers can one find two different ways to complete the SuDoKu?
I know, by trying, that for a SuDoKu with 16 squares using 1 - 4 as numbers it is quite easy to find two different solutions but what happen to a full SuDoKu.

this is interesting.
http://www.boxjamsdoodle.com/SudokuSolverDownload.html

woot!!! 25 minutes!!

correction, 15 minutes!

Just fyi... the websudoku site changed their address a bit... it is now what you see below.

http://play.websudoku.com/

Cheers, alilyputt! I've updated the links above as indicated. =)

Warning: Don't even start with Sudoku if you have something to do in the next couple of hours. =) I can just sit and do a half-dozen in a row- quite addictive =)

hey, check this out! it's an article in yesterdays news here in OK.

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SUDOKU SOLVED

A physicist at Cornell University was working to resolve a problem with biological imaging and accidentally found a way to solve all of the puzzles of the popular game Sudoku.

The difference-map algorithm created by Veit Elser to take images of the tiniest biological specimens also solves Sudoku puzzles, and possibly other math puzzles that require the solution to meet two independent constraints.
Elser's research recently appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For more information, go online to Cornell website. Click on the molecule at the bottom left of the Web page.
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interesting stuff!

It is my favorite game in this whole universe! i got hooked on it and am on puzzle number 893 on the level evil. this is one of the best games in my life and i encourage you to give it a try

5:36.
a personal best. ive learned to love and hate this game.

Hoorah! Even though I chose the easiest level, this is my first time completing a Sudoku Puzzle! Thanks Jay! =)

I love sudoku and i play it every time i can !

I found this site really helpful when I was learning how to play sudoku. I'm not sure if you're interested in watching how to videos, but these are great for beginners!