History of sudoku game

Where did Sudoku originate from?

The origin of Sudoku is a lengthy and debated process. Significant contributions to today's Sudoku come from China, Europe, America, and Japan. Let's take a closer look at the invention process of the Sudoku game. Many people mistakenly believe that Sudoku was invented in Japan, but that is not the case. Japan gave the game its name and global popularity.

China

The precursor to Sudoku was the game of "Magic Square" 3x3. The first mention of this game dates back to 2200 BCE (Lo Shu Square). The essence of the game was to place numbers in a 3x3 square so that their sum in columns, rows, and diagonals was the same.

Europe

Only in the mid-18th century did Europe invent a puzzle that was even closer to modern Sudoku. It was invented by Leonhard Euler, a Swiss physicist and mathematician, the father of modern classic Sudoku.

This scientist proposed a game called "Latin Square." The game had familiar 9 columns and 9 rows, filled with Latin symbols so that they did not repeat in rows, columns, and diagonals.

USA

It was only in 1979 that puzzle developers realized that players found it more interesting to solve puzzles with numbers. The game called "Number Place" was first published in the "Dell Magazines." This was the first classic Sudoku that made it to the magazine covers.

Responsible for the first publication of the logical game Number Place was Howard Garns, an architect from Indiana. Each day, his creation gained more popularity. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the days when his logical game became popular worldwide.

Japan

In Japan, "Number Place" was very much to people's liking. In April 1984, the founder of the "Monthly Nikolist" newspaper, Maki Kaji, published a puzzle with the familiar name (数独, Su Doku).

Maki Kaji made a significant contribution to the development and popularization of Sudoku. He standardized the rules of the game and began promoting Sudoku in puzzle collections worldwide. The owner of Nikoli Puzzle Company passed away in 2021, and he will be remembered as the person who made Sudoku loved worldwide.

Therefore, people who think that Sudoku was invented in Japan are quite mistaken. Japan gave this logical game a globally recognized name and made it fashionable worldwide.

Sudoku Today

Sudoku reached its peak popularity from 1990 to 2005. All globally known magazines (The New York Times, DER SPIEGEL, The Washington Post, and others) still find it prestigious to publish Sudoku on their pages. Sudoku is solved every day on all continents of our Earth.

In addition to paper Sudoku collections, you have at your disposal: mobile applications, websites for playing Sudoku online, online championships, daily Sudoku, fan clubs, and other activities related to this game.

What are the different types of Sudoku?

In this list, it is impossible to mention all variations of Sudoku; there are many. Therefore, let's mention the most popular ones according to Escape Sudoku:

1. Classic Sudoku 9x9
2. Killer Sudoku
3. Sudoku for kids
4. Sudoku X
5. Color Sudoku
6. Wordoku
7. Irregular Sudoku
8. Dots Sudoku
9. Odd-Even Sudoku
10. Frame Sudoku
11. Windoku
12. Asterisk Sudoku
13. Snowflake Sudoku
14. Argyle Sudoku
15. Low-High Sudoku
16. Center Dot Sudoku

Which is the most difficult Sudoku?

According to the rules, correct classic Sudoku can have only 1 solution. The difficulty of Sudoku depends on the initial number of digits, the number of repetitions of each digit, and the arrangement of these digits. Scientists have proven that there is only one Sudoku with 17 initial digits and only one solution.

The difficulty of Sudoku also depends on the methods used to solve it. Therefore, it is a very subjective assessment. What may be an easy task for someone can be entirely unattainable for someone else.

How many different Sudoku games are there?

Scientists Bertram Felgenhauer and Frazer Jarvis calculated that there are a total of 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 combinations of layouts for the classic 9x9 Sudoku puzzle, each with 1 value.

Even if you were to solve one Sudoku every minute, you would not have enough life to solve all Sudoku puzzles. Even for modern computers, this is a quite challenging task.

Sudoku Facts

• The world record officially documented belongs to a player from China who solved Sudoku in 54.44 seconds.
• The largest Sudoku game grid has dimensions of 100x100.
• There are over 200 types of Sudoku worldwide.
• Sudoku does not require knowledge of mathematics, only logical thinking.
• Since 2006, the World Sudoku Championship has been held annually.
• Sudoku helps train your brain as effectively as the Rubik's Cube.