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Online Sudoku
Sudoku was an international sensation back in 2005 and still popular today. People turn to this popular time waster when a computer is not available. However, since its hit, web sites have been making Sudoku available online and while many would turn to other types of entertainment, albeit with better graphics, online Sudoku can be just as entertaining.
=Rules=
I first tried online Sudoku a few days ago with much skepticism about its fun factor. Sudoku is a puzzle with a 9x9 grid divided into 3x3 sub-grids. When starting, these sub-grids are partially filled with numbers between 1 and 9 by the puzzle setter. The rule of the game is to fill each sub-grid with numbers 1 through 9. Each row in the table must not have a number that appears more than once for that row. The same rule applies to columns.
=Players=
Usually, Sudoku is a single player game. However, there are variations of Sudoku that support multi-player gaming. Its rules are similar to the original, the only change is the addition of a player and the time each finishes the game.
=The Grid=
Making Sudoku into an online game has many advantages over the newspaper version. First, the sub-grids are pre-filled to different values every time making each game “new”. Next, there’s the option to check on your progress. Also, like playing chess on a computer, Sudoku makes uses of recursive algorithms to solve the puzzle. Other options include checking if any of the rules have been violated. There buttons can be too tempting to use if you are frustrated at your progress.
=Difficulty=
Sudoku’s difficulty can vary widely from the start of the game. The initial prefilled numbers in each grid can be positioned in such a way to make it difficult to solve later on in the game. Also, Sudoku tends to be more difficult as cells are finished and the player moves closer to solving the puzzle. This tends to be true for any difficulty levels.
=Conclusion=
Online Sudoku can be just as fun and challenging as their newspaper counterpart. However, it offers many tempting features for the weak. Sadly, I found myself using these features quite often.
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