I just finished this today. 224 puzzles, all pleasantly challenging, but solvable. I bought this at a dollar store before Joseph was born, in order to take it to the hospital with me, thinking I'd want something to do that wasn't too mentally challenging (not a good time to catch up on First Things, for example), yet didn't lower my I.Q. (so no sample issues of Parenting mag either). It was very helpful in the early days of nursing too, when I needed something to take my mind off the "discomfort." I find solving Sudoku puzzles very personally satisfying -- they fulfill a deep need in me for a place for everything and everything in its place. How cool is it that the numbers fit so neatly into their own little squares!I confess. I'm an addict. How about you?
I would just like to point out that I was doing Sudokus before they were cool.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! I see you are doing the "Hard" ones. Way to go! (You can't escape that math gene.)
ReplyDeleteI have been doing Number Place, the original puzzle, for many years, long before it was ripped off in Japan and called "Sudoku". I still do both types occasionally, when I want something truly mindless, but I prefer Cross Sums and Trigons.
Although I have to say, in the latest issue of Dell Math Puzzles & Logic Problems there are some interesting variations of Sudoku that combine aspects of Cross Sums as well.
Yeah, I never really liked the Number Place puzzles. It seemed so tedious, whereas Cross Sums always seemed like such a deeper puzzle. It's more complicated logic, and it actually used the numbers. In Number Place/Sudoku they are merely meaningless symbols.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't try to tell me they're all composite magic number squares with a magic number of 45.