Sudoku – Online and Downloadable Games

Sudoku Puzzles are wordless crossword puzzles that can be considered brain teasers.  These types of puzzles require lateral thinking to solve and are incredibly popular around the world.

Sudoku puzzles are logic-based placement puzzles and the object is to enter a numerical digit from 1 through 9 in each cell that is found on a 9 x 9 grid.  Several digits (often referred to as ‘givens’) are often given in some cells. To successfully solve a Sudoku puzzle – every row, column, and region must contain only one instance of each numeral from 1 through 9.

Number puzzles similar to Sudoku Puzzles have been in existence and published in newspapers for over a century. Le Siecle, a daily newspaper based in France, featured a 9×9 grid with 3×3 sub-squares as early as 1892 however, this puzzle only used double-digit numbers instead of the current 1-9.  La France (another French newspaper), created a puzzle in 1895 that utilized the numbers 1-9 without using 3×3 sub-squares.

Modern Sudoku Puzzles are thought to be created by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor.   Garns’ design was first published in 1979 in New York in the Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games magazine. The publishing company, Nikoli, then published Sudoku Puzzles in Japan in April 1984, where the name ‘Sudoku’ was provided by Nikoli President, Maki Kaji.  The trademark for Sudoku is held by Nikoli and other Japanese publications have to use another name.

It is thought that Garns’ creation was inspired by the Latin square invention of Leonhard Euler, with a few modifications, basically, with the addition of a regional restriction and the presentation of the game as a puzzle, providing a partially-complete grid and requiring the solver to fill in the empty cells.

In 1989, Sudoku Puzzles entered the video games arena when it was introduced by Loadstar/Softdisk Publishing as DigitHunt on the Commodore 64.  Since then a number of other computerized versions of the Sudoku Puzzles have been developed.  Yoshimitsu Kanai made several computerized puzzle generator of the game under the name Single Number for the Apple Macintosh in 1995 both in English and in Japanese language; for the Palm (PDA) in 1996; and for Mac OS X in 2005.

Sudoku is produced as written puzzles, electronically on gaming platforms like the XBox and in downloadable and online game formats.