Sudoku was invented by Howard Garns, and published in 1979 in Dell Magazine under the name, "Number Place".
However, Sudoku was relatively unheard of until around 2004 when Wayne Gould
introduced Sudoku to
The Times in Britain.
Sudoku is a very simple game to learn, however the logic required to solve each
puzzle is a lot harder than it looks. The rules of a regular 9x9 Sudoku puzzle
are quite simple. Just place the numbers 1-9 in every row, column, and box.
Here is an example of a Sudoku puzzle with its solution:
A regular 9x9 Sudoku puzzle |
The solution to the puzzle |
Notice how in a regular Sudoku puzzle, there are 9 rows, 9 columns, and 9 boxes.
In the solution, each row, column, and box contains every number from 1 to 9
exactly once.
Sudoku puzzles do not have to be 9x9. For example, a 16x16 puzzle would have
every number from 1 to 16 occur once in every row, column, and box.
A solved 16x16 Sudoku Puzzle |
There is also a version of Sudoku where the puzzles must have every number occur
once in the main diagonals of the puzzle along with the rows, columns, and
boxes.
There is an applet that lets you play an interactive version of Sudoku. In the
applet, you can set the difficulty, size, and diagonal variant, and play a new
puzzle. There are 400,000 puzzles implemented so far, so you shouldn't get bored
anytime soon! Click
here to play the Sudoku applet
online.