Sudoku Puzzle Solving for Recreation

What is Sudoku?

Sudoku is a logic-based number placement puzzle which started its life as "Number Place" invented by an American architect, Howard Garns, in 1979. It was first published by Dell Magazines. The puzzle became very popular in Japan after it was published by the Japanese puzzle giant Nikoli Inc. which renamed the puzzle "Sudoku".

The Japanese word "Su" means number and "Doku" refers to the single place on the puzzle board that each number can fit into. The word "Sudoku" also conveys an impression of a person who is single and perhaps probably correspond to "Solitaire". So it will not give it an English name "Solitaire with numbers." Many people also misspelled it as "Soduko" or "Sudoko."

Its international popularity should probably be attributed to a retired Hong Kong judge originally from New Zealand, Wayne Gould. Wayne Gould took years to developed a computer program to generate infinite number of combinations of the puzzle. He then managed to persuade The Times newspaper in London to publish it as a daily puzzle, first on 12th November, 2004.. Many newspapers later followed The Times newspaper's footstep to publish Sudoku puzzle as a leisurely diversion from serious reading. It is now published daily in newspapers and magazines worldwide and many books have been published on strategies to solve the puzzle, etc.

Amazon product for Sudoku

How is Sudoku played?

The Sudoku puzzle consist of a 9x9 grid of squares divided into 3x3 sub-grids called "regions". Some squares have numbers already filled in, some which you have to fill in with numbers to complete the puzzle. The rule of the game is the numbers 1 to 9 can appear only once on each row, each column, and each region only once.

You can try the game yourself by completing the squares below:

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The drop down menu allow you to choose the level of difficulties - veasy (very easy), easy, med (medium), hard, vhard (very hard). You can find out what the icons that come after the drop-down menu by hovering your mouse over it. A tool tip will appear telling you what the icon is for as illustrated by the screenshot below: