The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[jsmith]

Hi everyone,
A few years ago I had an idea for a sudoku variant, but did nothing about it. It's based on an 8x8 board with split cells making an unusual 10x10 arrangement that you fill with the digits 0-9. Anyway, last year I coded it up [I'm a software engineer in my day job], put in on the web and did nothing about it.

It's available at http://sudo10.com and it would be great if someone could let me know what they think. In particular, I'd love honest feedback about things like:

• Is it fun to play?
• Is it original, or have you seen something similar before?
• Is it too easy or too hard?
• Can you think of any ways to improve it?

It's got a couple of difficulty levels, and you may find it more enjoyable if you switch to the hard difficulty.

[tarek]

I'm not sure why nobody replied or commented to this yet (Probably due to the waning interest in sudoku nowadays!!)

This is a lovely idea & a lovely variant ... Well done

The triangles will make it difficult to type graphically or transport digitally for electronic solvers.

tarek

[jsmith]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm glad you like it

[Smythe Dakota]

I'm not sure why nobody replied or commented to this yet ....

Possibly because the website gives you nothing but a blank screen with the message "your bowser" [ sic ] "is not supported, please upgrade it". I'd like to look at it, but I can't.

Bill Smythe

[tarek]

I'm not sure why nobody replied or commented to this yet ....

Possibly because the website gives you nothing but a blank screen with the message "your bowser" [ sic ] "is not supported, please upgrade it". I'd like to look at it, but I can't.

Yes Bill I can confirm what you're saying when using IE8. I must have viewed it originally on Safari!!!

[jsmith]

Good point, I should try and support that browser. Or Bowser!

[jsmith]

I've updated it to work in Internet Explorer 8. I hope that lets you try it, Bill. It still doesn't work in older browsers, so I have some more work to do.

James

[Smythe Dakota]

It works now, but I get a warning message that a script is slowing down my computer, and if I let it continue, it might bring my computer to a screeching halt. It also let me opt out of that script, which I did, and then the main puzzle came on.

Obviously that puzzle has at least 10-factorial solutions, if it has one. That doesn't necessarily make it easy, though. I'll try it later.

Bill Smythe

[jsmith]

Bill, stopping the script stopped the board getting created properly. You should have seen a partially filled in board with one solution, not 10! The website isn't important anyway, what I really want to know is what you think of the variant. Below is an example board - I hope you can get a feel for it from that

[Smythe Dakota]

Yeh, that's more like it. I'm glad you're better at creating puzzles than you are at designing websites.

I'll give it a try soon.

Bill Smythe

[jsmith]

In case you want to try another, here are two more

[HATMAN]

Motris has recently been posting similar puzzles, see:

http://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/

He has an extra constraint that the "fractions" must be proper i.e. the upper number must be less than the lower one.

[jsmith]

Wow, there are lots of interesting variants there. Were you referring to the tight-fit sudokus? http://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/category/sudoku/tight-fit-sudoku/.

For my boards, the restriction that a smaller number is above a larger 't make as much sense as the point of the diagonals is to split the board into separate regions much like the sudoku board.

[HATMAN]

That the one I meant and I see your point about the constraint.