about 12 years ago - Comments Off
Just a quick heads-up that PuzzleMix, my site where you can play a wide range of puzzles online, now supports touch screen play for all of the number entry puzzles – so that’s Sudoku, Killer Sudoku, Futoshiki, Calcudoku, Skyscraper, Sudoku X, Kropki Sudoku, Killer Sudoku Pro, Jigsaw Sudoku, Consecutive Sudoku, Wraparound Sudoku, Sudoku XV, Killer More >
about 13 years ago - 1 comment
Calcudoku+ 7×7
I had a request for a 7×7 Calcudoku-esque puzzle that uses only + operations, so I thought “why not?”. And here it is.
about 14 years ago - Comments Off
Calcudoku 6×6 puzzle
It’s been an age since I’ve posted new puzzles on here directly, mainly because all my puzzle-making effort has been focused on Sudoku Xtra, Sudoku Pro, PuzzleMix and a major book I recently completed.
In any case, there’s no time like the present to fix that so here’s a simple 6×6 Calcudoku. Just place 1 More >
about 14 years ago - 1 comment
Samurai 3-grid Calcudoku 6×6 puzzle
I’ve been posting a few new varieties of Sudoku puzzle in the daily puzzle section of PuzzleMix (i.e. the subscription section, which costs less than £1 a month for well over 1,000 puzzles a year). These aren’t especially unusual variations, but I’ve done a few different mixes (e.g. Sudoku-X 12×12 and More >
about 14 years ago - 3 comments
Samurai 8-grid Calcudoku puzzle
Here’s probably the largest Calcudoku puzzle you’ve ever seen! It’s made up of 8 underlying 9×9 grids, each of which must have 1 to 9 placed into each row and column, and then on top of this I’ve added the familiar Calcudoku regions.
For each Calcudoku region just place numbers such that the More >
about 14 years ago - 1 comment
Inequality Calcudoku puzzle
Here’s a fun little puzzle – a Calcudoku Inequality puzzle.
Just place 1 to 6 into each row and column whilst obeying the bold-lined cages’ operator totals. These give the result of applying the stated operator between all numbers in that region, so for example the result of adding together all the squares in More >
about 15 years ago - 2 comments
Toroidal Calcudoku puzzle
Another easy Calcudoku in terms of its logic, although this one is a little trickier in practice since it’s 7×7 and is toroidal, meaning that some of the regions wrap around the edges of the grid and continue on the square directly opposite on that row/column. Other than, just place 1 to 7 More >
about 15 years ago - 3 comments
Consecutive Samurai CalcuDoku puzzle
Now this is an interesting puzzle! At first glance it looks like it can’t possibly have a unique solution, since there are no givens and only 9 cages on the entire 3-grid Samurai puzzle (made up of 6×6 grids). But in fact it uses only simple logic to solve, and it unravels More >
about 15 years ago - 3 comments
As easy as 11, 22, 33 Killer CalcuDoku
Here’s a relaxing puzzle for a Sunday… or maybe not! Can you complete this Killer CalcuDoku puzzle made up of 1s, 2s and 3s?
Place 11, 12, 13, 21, 22, 23, 31, 32 or 33 into each square so that the result of applying the specified operation to each More >
about 15 years ago - 1 comment
Killer CalcuDoku +/- 6×6 puzzle
There’s a lot of very interesting puzzle space to explore between the extremes of Killer Sudoku and KenKen (a trademark of Nextoy LLC, so I will always refer to this as CalcuDoku from now on, unless anyone suggests a better name!).
I’m going to define two in-between puzzles, giving a continuum like More >
about 15 years ago
Very easy CalcuDoku for me. I did each one in about 2-3 minutes at a guess. I do like that you have dismissed the “subtraction and division can only be 2 boxes” rule that most other puzzles use.
I am finding most of the KenKen type puzzles out there are easy at best. The local paper has started including 6×6 KenKen and I usually solve those in 5 minutes or less. I saw a Dell book recently: “EASY KenKen” … Really?! … 1+2=3 … 1*5=5 … can I go play on the swing set now?
I think there is potential for this type of puzzle, but I feel as if it is being dumbed down. Thank you Gareth for working at making CalcuDokus interesting.
I have recently done a book by Conceptis puzzles called MathDoku. Their 5-star hard puzzles were very interesting … with cages such as 17280x-in-8 and 19+-in-8 (also in funky shapes).
about 15 years ago
I have been pretty shocked by how (as you say) truly EASY the KenKen/CalcuDoku puzzles published elsewhere generally are! Indeed most can be solved without ever having to think about how the possible solutions in different regions combine and interact together – just a straightforward Sudoku-esque solve suffices, with the ability to do maths needed only to narrow down the candidates satisfactorily.
I also can’t spot the difference between Dell’s Easy Ken-Ken and their regular Ken-Ken magazine – they are both easy, and I think it is perhaps a marketing test? However that is just a guess!
I can make MUCH harder CalcuDoku if you like!
about 15 years ago
Nice to see the puzzles coming again! It sounds from your posts as though you have an awful lot on the horizon at the moment.
I also completed these two puzzles very quickly. I really enjoy the Kenken/CalucuDoku puzzles but like Spittledung find most of the published puzzles too easy. I am by no means a puzzle expert (my brain will only take me so far!!) but when I do a puzzle I do like a bit of a challenge and for that reason would not buy the Dell magazines. There’s an invitation to produce a harder CalcuDoku for us!!
As regards symmetry, as an enthusiast rather than an expert, it’s not something I really take notice of. Sorry!