Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware
Time Waster of the Day: Sudoku
by Jordan Running Aug 17th 2005 at 1:57PM
I first heard about Sudoku awhile ago, but never really got into it until this week. But boy did I get into it. Sudoku is a logic puzzle in which you're presented with a grid of nine rows and nine columns. The object of the game is to fit the numbers 1 through 9 into the grid so that each number appears only once in each row, column, and 3x3 sub-grid. At the beginning of the game you're given many of the numbers and have to use deductive to figure out where the rest go. It's a very simple game—sort of a cross between minesweeper and the venerable crossword puzzle—but maddeningly addictive and, at the higher difficulty levels (i.e. fewer "given" numbers), a real mental exercise.
There are many sites where you can play Sudoku online, but I've found Miniclip's Flash Sudoku to be the best. It has three difficulty levels, the invaluable ability to record "guesses" (e.g when you know a cell must be a 3 or a 9, but you don't know which), and a new puzzle for each difficulty level every day.
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
J.T. Mill said 5:46PM on 8-17-2005
My mom got addicted to this game when she first found it in the Washington Post. I've played it to and it's pretty fun.
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Jonathan Cohen said 11:35PM on 8-17-2005
Try this freeware downloadable version:
http://www.easton.me.uk/tcl/sudoku/
It says it's free for personal use (Windows only). It doesn't have the guess-recording feature, but you can generate an infinite number of random Sudoku puzzles, and play at your leisure...very nice.
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David Easton said 8:44AM on 12-22-2005
The Sudoku Puzzle Generator at http://www.easton.me.uk/tcl/sudoku does have the guess-recording feature (use the right mouse button to put in guesses).
The miniclip Sudoku puzzles are also generated by an earlier version of this software.
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haybeci said 5:22PM on 12-22-2005
sudoku
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