The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Dusty Chalk]

If oyu want to make it about solving a Sudoku, how about some people are trappled inside a giant 3d alpha-numeric Sudoku and they have to solve it, but they cant see an overview of the whole grid (because they are inside), they have to crawl around the rooms to find the rooms that have a clue filled in, and make a note of it building it a picture of the grid as they go along, and the twist at the end it that it's a sudoku with 0 solutions, and they all die.

Tron meets Hellraiser -- I like!

...but then you could have them fight for the clues, and the fighting gets progressively more difficult, until they lose one of their members. And make sure you feature a strong female lead, like Lara Croft/Tombraider/Ripley/etc.

[Karyobin]

I must agree with the earlier post, the basic synopsis is DEFINITELY quite a lot like the masterpiece Pi. But if you want to develop the idea, you could include one or more of the more successful plot devices of recent years, for example:

1. Love - a beautiful woman has retreated into the recesses of her own mind in a Ghost from the Grand Banks-type way due to the seemingly endless sudoku generated by Wayne's program. She is making a fortune from designing interactive sudoku wallpaper which she sells along with a small packet of Berol Drywipe pens. The toilet is once more the most popular room in the house but forests are suffering due to the intense demand for toilet roll with which to clean the wallpaper. Huge upsurge in cases of haemorrhoids as men and women spend inordinate amounts of time on the loo.

2. Cute children - they are kidnapped by an evil mastermind who threatens to draw all over them unless our hero solves a given sudoku by, say, teatime on Thursday.

3. Fancy weaponry - sudoku guns. They have 81 barrels and they fire predetermined amounts of 1 to 9 rounds from each barrel. Not too useful by themselves, but built into the whole 'despatching cute children' thing it could be a winner.

4. Cuddly animals - a hamster called 'Nishio' who *eeks* whenever a number is misplaced. More than four *eeks* and the 'sudoku gun' comes into play.

The are possibilities for a sequel:

5. Fraud - A complete denial (without qualifying explanation) by the US government that the completed puzzle is correct, even though it can be proved to be so by anyone with an IQ of above room temperature.

6. Liberation - an invasion of Michael Mepham's computer files by PROMIS software with the intention of 'Regime Change', i.e. freeing the world of SMD (Sudoku of Mental Depletion), defined as having more than one solution or needing guesswork to complete them. Of course, subsequent to the incursion no SMD may be found, but at least Wayne will have more power and more contracts and after all, there are a finite number of sudoku in the world; when these eventually begin to run out, new reserves of sudoku will change hands at vastly-inflated prices.

Feel free to pick and choose any of the above, they are all public-domain from now on. The last two have been for some time.