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Kakuro Puzzles In The Modern Setting
By Earl Talbot
Kakuro puzzles are considered by some as the harder version of its more famous partner, the Sudoku puzzles. Kakuro puzzles are also considered by puzzles enthusiasts as modified versions of crossword puzzles, where numbers, instead of words, are used.

Actually, Kakuro puzzles have several similarities to the typical crossword puzzle. For one, the grid in a Kakuro very much resembles the grid used in American crossword puzzle. Also, in a crossword game, a clue is provided but its correct answer is limited to the number of squares provided by the game as well as by the intersecting answers. This is very much the same thing with Kakuro, where a player must find the two single digits that will add up to a specific value but must be limited to the number of squares provided as well as on the intersecting sums. Note must also be given to the fact that in a Kakuro game, no sum should contain the same digit twice.

Kakuro puzzles, more commonly referred as Cross Sum in its early days of development, are not entirely new. They have enjoyed tremendous as well as continuous popularity in Japan since 1986. However, the awareness of the game’s existence, especially in the United States and in many parts of the Western world, has risen only very recently. In this regard, it does not come as a big surprise to see major websites nowadays taking advantage of the puzzle’s growing popularity by dedicating their page or pages to Kakuro in the past month or so. Blogs that discuss Kakuro techniques and solutions are also increasing by leaps and bounds.

The latest news about the Kakuro puzzles is that Conceptis Puzzles, the world leader in the international logic puzzles market, has launched last February a modern version of the puzzle game, which it appropriately called Conceptis Kakuro. The puzzle company has secured the services of King Features to handle the syndication of the game to daily newspapers all around the world. In addition, Conceptis is also set to release several Kakuro magazines and books in the coming months in cooperation with several international publishing houses.

Conceptis Puzzles said its version of the Kakuro puzzles involved the use of correlation algorithm to make the puzzle really easy, so that the greatest number of people possible can get to enjoy playing the game to the maximum. The Kakuro algorithm creates in the game one starting point in each one of the four blocks, and makes sure that conflicts do not emerge when players begin to solve the puzzle all the way to its logical conclusion.

Kakuro puzzles, Conceptis style, are reported to be available in six different levels, ranging from the very easy to the extremely difficult. They also come in different sizes such as the 8 by 8, the 10 by 10, the 12 by 12, the 14 by 14, just to name a few. This makes the Kakuro puzzles of Conceptis more fun and exciting to solve and a perfect fixture in many newspapers as well as books in any part of the world.

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The Puzzling World Of Sudoku Puzzles
By Terry Solomon
Sudoku puzzles are the newest puzzle craze currently sweeping across many parts of the United States. The game has only one basic rule, that is, every row and every column on a 3 by 3 box of Sudoku puzzles has to contain the numbers 1 through 9, but only once with no one digit repeating itself.

Sudoku puzzles, also referred to as Number Place in the United States, are said to be deceptively simple, since a player can start the game quite easily only to find himself later on getting stuck in the middle of the game with no clear puzzle solution in sight.

Good Sudoku puzzles ideally should ultimately have only one solution, using only one’s logic skills, meaning guesswork is not an effective method in solving the puzzle.

However, solving Sudoku puzzles on pure logic alone can prove to be a difficult task. For logic to be effective, a puzzle should be able to move progressively. This simply means that at every stage in the solution of the puzzle, there must be at least one square or block whose value can be determined easily. Determining that one value should then uncover at least one other fully determined value, and so on and so forth. Yet, this process can best be achieved by applying guesswork. By making a speculative or guessed entry in one block, a player can eventually determine if the other block has a logical entry or maybe none at all. This can be quite confusing, but the implication here is that while Sudoku claims that it can be solved by logic alone, it is not a good starting option. A player has to first make a guess or even guesses on his or her initial entry.

While Sudoku puzzles appear to continue boggling the minds of many puzzle addicts, it is interesting to note how the puzzle can be solved with relative ease by many computer programs. The question of logic and guesswork again comes into play in this particular aspect because most computer softwares are often programmed to make use of the trial-and-error concept, making quick corrections when an errant entry is made in a particular square or block.

Playing against a computer in a game involving Sudoku puzzles thus tends to be a futile endeavor. Your opponent can easily make the necessary corrections, using purely trial-and-error, and ultimately finding the right solution. You, on the other hand, are stuck in logical thinking, trying to justify the entry of a particular digit in a particular square or block.

Nevertheless, the beauty of Sudoku puzzles is that while the rules involved are quite simple, they do not necessarily solve the puzzle by themselves alone. The game also requires the application of a certain degree of analytical method that are not entirely written in black and white, but often can be discovered only by mere guesswork. A few of these in fact have been given interesting names such as “swordfish” and “x-wing”. In this regard, it is no great wonder that Sudoku puzzles have become a popular pastime in many parts of the world.

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