Sudoku Puzzles
Sudoku refers to a number placement puzzle also known as Number Place in America. The name is Japanese; the kanji it is written in implies "multiple isolations." The puzzle seems to have first been published in the U.S. (likely by Dell, which uses the Number Place name) before being noticed and then popularised in Japan by Nikoli, which uses the Sudoku name. Bringing the process full-circle, Kappa reprints Nikoli Sudoku in GAMES Magazine under the name Squared Away. It has also been an instant success in the London newspaper The Times, and is often included in puzzle anthologies, such as The Giant 1001 Puzzle Book (under the title Nine Numbers).
The puzzle is played on a grid, most frequently made up of 3x3 subgrids - "regions" - and starting with various numbers in the range of 1 through 9 given in some cells - "givens." The goal is to fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that every column, row, and region each contains the numbers 1 through 9 once. Therefore, each number in the solution is unique - or alone - in each of three "directions," hence "multiple isolations." The attraction of the puzzle is that the completion rules are so simple and yet the overall task can be difficult. Each puzzle can be ranked in terms of difficulty depending upon how many numbers are given and how easy it is to logically determine subsequent numbers once the puzzle has been started.
The description "number place" is somewhat misleading as there is nothing unique about the choice of numbers: the puzzle would still work if each specific number were to be substituted by another specific number (like swapping all the 8s and 4s, etc.) or to be replaced by an arbitrary non-numerical image. Indeed, Penny Press uses letters in their version called Scramblets.
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