The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Tollfield]

I have been playing Sudoku for several days now and have followed the comments on the Times online page with regard to levels of difficulty (players were beginning to find it easy to complete a puzzle). It occurred to me that if Japanese or Chinese characters or pictures of differing complexity or similarity were an option, as in mahjong, it might add a further element of difficulty and give an authentic feel to the program. Also perhaps an option for Chinese or Japanese background music could be considered. What does anyone else think?

[Pappocom]

To a limited extent, this is possible already. If you choose to play with Letters instead of Numbers, you can choose one of those special fonts that is not made up of the regular alphabet, but of pictures instead. It's up to you to find a picture-font that you like. If you find one you like, you could post the details about it here? and tell us where we can get a copy.

If you want more details about how to use a picture font, you can go to the Help menu (within the Sudoku program) and pick "Help Topics..." When the Help window comes up, go to the Index tab and select "Pictures/Graphic fonts".

- Wayne

[Guest]

Just reading through the site (completely converted to Sudoku via both the book/software + now buying The Times every day...so the newspaper owes at least one new buyer solely to Sudoku!)

Leading on from the original question I also wondered how feasible it may be to develop a child friendly version to develop their thinking skills i.e. using common cartoon characters that "youngish" children may find more recognisable as opposed to using the numbers or letters currently included.

I'd suggest that there are enough 'global' cartoons that everyone would recognise that only one version would be necessary e.g. in the UK we have various cartoons and films e.g. Teletubbies, Scooby Doo, Tom n Jerry, Bugs Bunny, The Incredibles, Toy Story characters etc. etc. to name just a few and whilst I understand that some of the 'intellectual property owners' i.e. BBC/Disney/Pixar etc may not be willing to allow character reproduction at first I would've thought that they would be open-minded to anything that could also increase their 'product' visibility in their target market (children)...especially if they can see it's being used to benefit the children (a classic win:win situation)

I do think that this would enhance Sudoku's appeal even further whilst at the same time providing another stimulating and fun thing for us Fathers and Mothers to introduce to our children...after all, why should us adults be the only ones to have this much Fun