July 13, 2007
Times Interactive Sudoku live
The Times Online have had the new interactive Sudoku game running for a few days now.
It hasn't been as smooth as we had hoped. There are problems with establishing cookies (they store important information on the Sudoku games) within the iframe. Internet Explorer 7 doesn't allow the session cookie to start in its current format, meaning people lost their puzzles as they were about to text their three numbers in. We have added a warning about the issue and how to resolve it, but this appears too frequently now.
I found that sessions will work within a popup, so we will have a popup start the required session cookie and then disappear. This will have a positive knock-on effect in the main iframe.
Posted by Nahoo at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2007
Interactive Times Online Sudoku game
Here is the new Times Online Sudoku game due to be launched this bank holiday weekend (if all goes well).
When it goes live, you can see it in action at timesonline.co.uk/sudoku/.
Posted by Nahoo at 04:17 AM | Comments (1)
April 02, 2007
Solve Sudoku for free money!
This is an extreme example of the emails I receive on the Sudoku website...
I want to be able to have to solve puzzles for money and prizes, because the Prize Edition that I have now, but I'm not sure that I'm going to win the $1,000 for doing the three puzzles and writing a little paragraph on when I first realized that I addicted to sudoku, because I really need that money because our family is in a really tight situation and we are really low on money.Previously he sent:
last year we had a house fire--lost everything. At the same time my husband, who's 56 was Forced into retirement. We have two sons--13 and 14. We're only getting 990 from the retirement. Five dollers would make or break milk and bread at the end of the month. Could we work something out so as I can gain full entry to your site---Im way past easy puzzles and am looking for a challenge. thank you.and...
Short story(i can explain the long one if you'd like) is i can not at this time afford this site. We have 990 a month income, 550 of it goes towards rent. The rest, what there of it, pays the bills. You have an excellent site. Would you consider allowing me a free access pass? we could trade services maybe. i don't know what that my be. ruth rantwineatgmailThis was thoughtfully sent by: Jay Gartman and his wife (appropriately named: rantwine) in the US. What up-side-down country are they from (the US)?!
Posted by Nahoo at 12:50 AM | Comments (2)
March 16, 2007
Times Swordfish article
Our first article for the Times Online was published today. It covers the essential techniques to conquer the hardest rated Sudoku in The Times and Sunday Times.
If you ever wanted to know how to solve a Super Fiendish, or if you want to know how you managed in the first place, check out the article and leave a comment.
Please feel free to leave your comments after the article.
Posted by Nahoo at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2006
Sudoku everyday in the Times
Our Sudoku are in The Times and Sunday Times every day now! Someone thought of a good idea with the text 2 win £1000 each day. The final squares the some of the last possible values indicating that the person has really completed the grid. For the first day's puzzles, go to the Times Online.
Posted by Nahoo at 06:18 PM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2006
Sudoku in The Times
Our first batch of Sudoku puzzles will be arriving in The Times on Monday, 13th November.
In addition to the 4 ratings: Easy, Mild, Difficult and Fiendish, we are introducing a new very hard level: Super Fiendish. These puzzles will always require a solving technique such as triples, x-wing or swordfish. If there is a demand, we can make this rating harder by introducing other solving techniques in the new year.
All ratings will have a better consistency with quite distinct difficulties. Now, the Difficult rating will kept on the rails without occasionally being too easy or too hard for the majority of players. The Fiendish category will remain a challenge to most Sudoku players with exposed and hidden pairs to discover in many puzzles.
On the online version, there will be no more gaps in the interactive Flash game. All the game data will be available to make this much more reliable for anyone who chooses to solve puzzles on the website.
There are a number of other additions to the paper and website, but I'll let you discover these for yourselves on the 13th.
If you have any public comments, please add them here or contact us at Sudoku Solver.
Posted by Nahoo at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2006
Sudoku Books
Lydia and I have had our first Times Sudoku books published!
However, someone forgot to inform me that our Sudoku books are available to buy in book shops... We only found out when checking for our Samurai Sudoku book in Sussex Stationers and finding the Times Sudoku 6 on the shelves.
Some recent changes to the Sudoku Solver website include a competition to win a poster each week and on the Sudoku Feed website, we have launch a demo version of the feed for webmasters to try without spending money.
You can buy a copy of these books from our Sudoku website.
Posted by Nahoo at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2006
Killer pressure
The pressure is really on now to get our first Killer Sudoku book sorted ASAP. There have been some problems to get around that we didn't experience with Sudoku and there are others that are somehow easier.
I think that its easier to rate Killers because there is more information to go on than a Sudoku. In fact, we found there could be too much information as minor decisions by the player do have quite big effects on the duration of the puzzle. The work around is simply to optimise the solver to find the most efficient solving process and then work from a firm base.
Posted by Nahoo at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2006
Killer Sudoku online
After a month's development on the Sudoku generator extension, we can now generate accurately rated Killer Sudoku puzzles!
Posted by Nahoo at 12:26 AM | Comments (1)
August 17, 2006
Samurai Sudoku in The Times
We had our very first Samurai Sudoku published in The Times this Saturday. It will be the first of many of our Sudoku related puzzles that appear in The Times and Sunday Times.
Some of the new features in these puzzles include: the requirement to solve the puzzle as a whole (previously, this was rarely the case) and the letters: A, B, C, D are now the last possible squares to be solved in each of the 4 outside grids. The guide to the solving time now represents the likely time of the average player (not just a complete guess like before) and there are finally some ratings present.
Stylistically, there are colours to identify the four squares and the solutions will have the given values highlighted to make it easier to read.
We will feature regularly in the Times on Saturday in the Books section, so please have a go at our puzzles!
Posted by Nahoo at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2006
Sudoku variants
I spotted some pretty cool Sudoku variants today including consecutive Sudoku (consecutive numbers are highlighted between cells) and greater than/less than Sudoku (numbers are compared between cells and using < and >).
Posted by Nahoo at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2006
Our Sudoku in a national newspaper
Good news! After 6 months of waiting, we have finally secured a Sudoku and Samurai Sudoku deal with one of the big UK national newspapers. Our Sudoku puzzles will now be played by millions of people in UK throughout the week. More details will be posted here closer to the publishing date.
For now, if you want to try out your own 5-grid Samurai Sudoku puzzles, go to Sudoku Generator and get a full account there.
Posted by Nahoo at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2006
Samurai Sudoku
We have created the world's first live Samurai Sudoku generator.
The Samurai Sudoku generator and solver is only available to full members, but it is worth the upgrade as there are print, email, import and export features for all the puzzles.
If you are not a full member, you can try out Samurai Sudoku for yourself with the free Samurai Sudoku sample in PDF.
Posted by Nahoo at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2006
Bringing a programmer to a computer and making him work
Its been a busy week for our JavaScript programmer David. As our deadlines were approaching Lydia and I decided that the only way to get the JavaScript Sudoku front-end working in time would be to sit him down at my computer and then feed him for the time it took to complete the task.
He arrived on Wednesday evening after suffering from severe conjunctivitis in one eye that same morning. The day before he escorted a friend to hospital because a kiln dropped on his foot... so, by this time we had had enough of these distractions and told him to come to our house for a distraction-free evening at the computer focused on one thing only.
After a night and a day of coffee, beer and honey and lemon drinks on tap, David had made some good headway with the programming work. There were no "cool" little functions that had no use, just the Sudoku game play area that we wanted.
I'll be posting all the details about the new Sudoku tool when the daily Sudoku is launched at Sudoku Solver.
Posted by Nahoo at 04:14 PM | Comments (1)
January 29, 2006
Sudoku competition
Just launched a new Sudoku competition with a good selection of prizes offered by Aaron at Solaris Tech. If you think you can handle another Super Sudoku puzzle and live to tell us the tale, then head over to the Prize Sudoku for a change to win some portable hardware.
Posted by Nahoo at 02:29 PM | Comments (1)