I have a couple of questions about Sudoku.

December 12, 2004 9:18 PM

I have a couple of questions about Sudoku. [mi]

Firstly, is there any freeware out there (windows, not Palm) that will generate Sudoku puzzles? US$15 is a bit steep for a trivial distraction.

Secondly, is there an algorithm for generating these puzzles yourself? I assume that you can't just throw down a handful of numbers into a grid and have it turn out as a solveable Sudoku puzzle, so I guess it'd have to be an algorithm that generated a 'solved' puzzle and then took out most of the numbers. I guess there's also an algorithm for working out which numbers to remove and which to leave depending on how difficult you want the puzzle to be.

posted by obiwanwasabi to sports, hobbies, & recreation (2 comments total)

I'm not sure if there's a freeware version of this, but here's a set of instructions on how to generate puzzles.
posted by zelphi at 9:22 PM on December 12, 2004

Now that 7s are completed, let's have a coffee break.

Crikey! Thanks for that, zelphi.

This post in rec.puzzles discusses an app called "Single Number" by Yoshimitso Kanai. Apparently it has a 'book mode' of 50 specially-crafted puzzles, each of which must be solved before the next can be opened. I can find a Palm version of this app - does anybody know if the 50 puzzles are available elsewhere, or ina Windows app? Guess I can always run a Palm emulator...
posted by obiwanwasabi at 9:56 PM on December 12, 2004