Sudoku by Howard Garns | Pedro's Works

Updated on Sunday, 13^th of April 2025 (created 2024-01-28) — Filed under: Howard Garns List Paper Ported Puzzle column numberpiece territory

Maki Kaji, the Father of Sudoku, renamed this genre (Number Place was the original name) and eventually popularised it in the 1980s, through regular Nikoli Publications that continue to this day.

Nowadays, the world of Sudoku is deep and friendly communities gather around it, notably Cracking the Cryptic. General and specialised tools abound, e.g.:

Sven Neumann (svencodes)'s Sudoku Pad
Pim Schreurs (sirxemic)'s Sudokumaker
f-puzzles (formerly maintained by Eric Fox)
Swaroop Guggilam (swaroopg)'s Penpa Plus (general tool, among others listed at the Paper Puzzle Masterlist)

This Sudoku 数独 implementation is smaller in scope. However, it adds a few twists to the base genre:

regions of any size (possibly mixed in the same puzzle)
irregular region borders
absent tiles (which do not block the line of sight)
hexagonal grid support (via the hex variant)

In addition, the Kudamono Variant System provides the following variants:

Variant	Meaning
`math`	adds math symbols, which, together with the placed numbers, must form valid equations
`kropki`	adds kropki symbols: a white dot indicates adjacent numbers are consecutive, while a black dot indicates they are at a 2:1 ratio
`kropki-total`	all kropki symbols are given (negative constraint)
`antiking`	no two numbers adjacent by a chess king's move may be equal
`antiknight`	no two numbers adjacent by a chess knight's move may be equal

As more variants are added in the future, those that are well-suited to Sudoku 数独 will be (re)listed in this page.

This classic sudoku uses non-square regions, of size 6.

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This is a cleverly constructed puzzle whose absent cells cannot be filled:

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justkirb filled in the absent tiles in the Absent minded puzzle by PinkHoodie, and added one clue, yielding a new remixed puzzle…

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`hex`

This one is set on the hex grid, which contains one extra row direction. For some region sizes, removing tiles from the grid is needed.

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`math`

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`obstacle`

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`obstacle,antiknight`

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`edge-solve,territory-area-4,edge-forbidden,math`

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`edge-solve,territory-area-4,kropki`

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2024-01-31 PinkHoodie made good use of absent tiles in the newly sent puzzle!

2024-02-01 Variant panels for antiking and antiknight (Sudoku 数独) were crafted by PinkHoodie - thank you!

2024-02-01 ^puzzletters PinkHoodie sent a 7x7 with absent cells, justkirb remixed the previous 5x5, and PinkHoodie constructed a clever 8x8 that cannot be remixed in that way.

2024-06-15 ^puzzletters PinkHoodie sent 2 puzzles using variant math!

2024-07-19 ^puzzletters PinkHoodie sent 1 classic - thank you!

2024-11-23 ^puzzletters The first obstacle variant Sudoku 数独 was crafted by PinkHoodie!

2024-12-07 ^puzzletters PinkHoodie constructed 2 Sudoku 数独 puzzles using variants math and obstacle,antiknight plus 2 Sudoku 数独 (classic) puzzles! Minor page reorganisation.

2025-04-12 ^puzzletters 5381 dispatched 1 Sudoku 数独 puzzle using variant math!

2025-04-13 ^puzzletters PinkHoodie made 2 Sudoku 数独 puzzles using variants edge-solve,territory-area-4,edge-forbidden,math and edge-solve,territory-area-4,kropki!

Sudoku Classic Sudoku 数独 puzzles Pedro PinkHoodie justkirb Variants hex math obstacle obstacle,antiknight edge-solve,territory-area-4,edge-forbidden,math edge-solve,territory-area-4,kropki Acknowledgements and Changes