More sudoku variations

There's snowflake sudoku, there's tri-doku, and there is tredoku

I know tri-doku and tredoku - the 3D variant, but what's the Snowflake variant?

Red cheeks - should have done a search before posting the above. Have found the Snowflake variant!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2010 02:56PM by Marilyn.

I've seen Snowflake Sudoku in a book, but they weren't actually Sudoku but rather hexagons you had to place 1 to 6 into so that no hexagon had 1 to 6 more than once, and numbers didn't touch. Then they were arranged in different patterns. It was quite nice, but rather simple and definitely not 'Sudoku'. Is that what you mean? Quite possibly there are multiple things called Snowflake Sudoku! Then Tridoku is pretty similar, but projected on a triangular grid rather than hexagons. It also had the addition of a couple of extra regions, but not as many as you could in principle have in a triangular grid - you could have unique digits in all 'rows' I imagine. I think I've seen both of these from the same author in book stores?

Tredoku is more of a genuine Sudoku, this time with a 3D projection to allow more creative row and column definitions, and it's been published under lots of names. What's interesting is how many of them are actually hand-made, perhaps because they're fiddly to set up. These are straightforward enough to create, but a bit of a pain to draw and get the projection right on. Still, I might look at them some day!

yeah. Snowflake Sudoku is covered in a bluish covered paperbook by Japheth Light.

Hi Jeff - I've come across snowflake sudoku by the name of Hexafex, but sadly not one of my favourites. I'd never seen the tri-doku but have googled them and downloaded a couple to try out. I haven't tried the tre-doku yet either, but will give them a go.

Hi Christine:

Not to worry, I haven't found time for those "variations" such as Snowflake Sudoku / Hexafex , et cetera

Conceptis Puzzles has a paperback reddish-covered book on "Sudoku Variations" also.

Jeff

More "food for thought" - Sudoku X puzzles, Wordoku puzzles

Also, Conceptis Puzzles has a red-covered paperback book on "Sudoku Variations". Perhaps some of the ideas in this book could be
used to create puzzles for "Xtra".

Yup, I think that "Snowflake Sudoku" could be Hexafex, just by another name. Maybe Japheth Light had copyright probs using "Hexafex", so he used "Snowflake Sudoku" instead

For "higher ups" (Gareth, Dave. etc.) maybe Conceptis' red-covered paperback on "Sudoku Variations" could be used somewhere as
"fodder for Xtra"

I think that http://sudokulinks.com lists a section on sudoku variants.

Jeff

I've looked at the Conceptis Sudoku Variants book in shops a couple of times - it has a mix of samurai variants, mainly, plus some other types, but nothing really exciting. It feels a little dated now somehow, although when it came out in 2006 I guess it was right up to the minute.

I think just about everything of any note that's in it has already been in Sudoku Xtra. There are some alternative samurai arrangements, but they're just e.g. a stack of 3 grids or something. I haven't done odd/even, but then if you label all of them it's just two smaller, separate puzzles overlapping.

Which reminds me - I'm planning on a variant odd/even cell join rule in a forthcoming Sudoku Xtra. It might be interesting.

Hey, even-odd logidoku?

Logidokus are the creation of someone else, so I don't know if using them is wise.

Logidoku is essentially another name for a Jigsaw Sudoku, one of the most common variants of all, and invented long before someone first called them Logidoku. I have examples of this type of puzzle going back long before anyone in the West knew what Sudoku was - even in the 1990s in the UK it was commonly published at particular sizes under names such as "Logi-5" for example.

Snowflakes Sudoku has one additional rule besides putting 1 to 6 into each of the 13 hexagons in the pattern. There can't be any repeated numbers in each of the six partial hexagons along the border. These partial hexagons have four cells, with two missing cells outside at the border line. Given that additional rule, Snowflakes are harder to solve. Yet I've written a C-program that solves for all solutions of a puzzle with a given set of initial numbers. Even then, I've found some that were thought to be "unique" that have multiple solutions, and some that were completely unsolvable.