Sudoku - the new addiction

**axon** · 10-26-2005

for several weeks now, each morning before I get on the train to school I pick up a free newspaper called "the red eye." As soon as I sit down I turn to the page contianing the daily Sudoku puzzle. What a great start to the day! It gets your mind working hard at 7 in the morinng

Just recently I've noticed that Sudoku is becoming a modern trend. The number 2 and 3 best selling daily desk calendars from Borders feature sudoku puzzles. One of the books on the bestseller list this month is also all about Sudoku.

What is Sudoku you ask....well, check it out here: http://www.sudoku.com/ and give it a try here http://www.sudoku.org.uk/daily.asp. So far there were only two I couldn't solve, a 5start and 6 start difficulty levels. On average it takes me anywhere from 45minutes to an hour and a half to solve it.

Now let the addiction spread

see how fast you can solve this one: http://www.sudoku.org.uk/DailyModerate.asp

it took me 32 mins. //game 4 is on

edit::i've posted this at ES as well - I think the crowd ar cboard could find it fun also

**rockytriton** · 10-26-2005

Right now I'm addicted to GTA San Andreas, or as I call it: "Sim Gangsta". I know, it's been out a while, but I'm cheap so I waited until I could get it for 20 bucks.

**sand_man** · 10-26-2005

I've done a few of those Sudoku puzles before but they just frustrate me.

**VirtualAce** · 10-26-2005

I'm trying to find the algo to code sudoku so I can make infinite numbers of em. And as for San Andreas....I'm bitter. It's been rated Mature Only or Adults Only or some stupid crap and now I can't buy it anywhere in the U.S. Supposedly there is an edited version coming out this fall.........but I don't see it yet.

I think there are more important things to police than damned video games. Who do they think the kids get their money from??

Morons.

**caroundw5h** · 10-26-2005

honestly i hate the fact, the mainstream has caught on to it. I was kinda hoping it would have been a "geek" kinda thing. non the less they are pretty fun and though no math is involved it does help you think a bit logically.

**adrianxw** · 10-27-2005

Back in May, I wrote a helper program for SuDoku. It does not suggest moves, (although it could obviously do so), it just marks each square with each number, red-not possible, green-possible.

In addition, it shows what numbers are available/missing for each row, column and square.

Using it, even the hardest puzzles I can do very quickly now, so I tend not to use it any more!

The sample output shows the puzzle linked above with only the "given" squares entered. "Given" squares are yellow, "Played" squares are white in my verion.

If the rules say a square can be "5" say, but by inspection of other squares I know it cannot be, I can "Toggle" the green 5 in that box to yellow.

To start, look at square I3, it can only be a 5.

**SMurf** · 10-27-2005

I started working on a Sudoku program over the summer because it was one of the suggested projects for the final year of my course and I thought "Nah, that's too easy and I'll do it now to prove it".

Few months down the line... well, it still isn't finished. I think it's quite good, it'll generate a variety of puzzles from 2x2 up to 5x5 (Although sometimes it goes infinite generating the larger puzzles, which just points out the main problem really)

The main problem with it is that when it does generate a puzzle there tends to be 2 solutions to it right at the end, which isn't right.

It can print the current puzzle to the printer too, nice and neat.

Here's some piccies, one showing the highlighting of bad moves (Red for along the same line, blue for duplicate in a unit of numbers, purple for both), as well as the new game dialog:-

**ober** · 10-27-2005

Here's another one for you axon:
http://www.sudoku.4thewww.com/index.php

**rockytriton** · 10-27-2005

You can get San Andreas on ebay, that's where I got it, and much cheaper than you would in a store anyway. By the way, the kids don't get their money to buy San Andreas from their parents, they get it from dealing drugs!

**Dweia** · 10-31-2005

After the *ahem* hot coffee incident, and pushing from various people, such as Jack Thompson, the rating got changed to Adults Only (AO), which also means that many large retailers won't stock it, and in some countries, like here in Australia, it's banned from sale.

On the plus side of things, he's starting to go lose it, read this, this and this.

It's all really quite amusing

Anyway, on to Sudoku. Quite a fun puzzle, been coming in the Sydney Morning Herald for a while now, lots of fun to solve, have races against people and all of that.

**sand_man** · 11-03-2005

I think I might have to have a go at this too.

Could have been a good competition.
(sorry about the slight bump)

**FuelCap** · 11-07-2005

Oh god all victimes of the sudoku puzzlesO.o

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