Other Puzzle Books that you do...

While we are waiting for Issue 2 to be released, I would like to know if anyone does other puzzle publications besides Sudoku Xtra and if they had any recommendations. I have tried quite a few titles and have opinions of them, and would like to hear other people's opinions as well.

Here are the ones I like to do:

Sudoku Xtra: Of course

Killer Sudoku and Kakuro (Puzzler): These are my favourite type of puzzles. I do these regularly, although I am finding them very easy from doing so many of them. I do the ones at the beginning when I have a quick 5 minutes and the "Deadly" ones in the back when I want to think about the puzzle. I like the Japanese Hello Kitty - type cartoon pictures in the booklet.

Super Hard Sudoku and the "Sudoku Master" series (Magworks Australia): I recommend these booklets for people who really want a real sudoku challenge. These booklets start with puzzles that many newspapers rate Diabolical or Evil and it ramps up from there. You should find an X-wing in the starting puzzles. Most of the time if this is not required, then I find the sudoku trivial. Eventually you need Y-wings, Chains, Nice Loops, and Unique Rectangles to unravel the puzzles. Some of their puzzles were wonky when they started publishing ... with one having 28 solutions but I think they have gotten their act together with later issues.

Kakuro Puzzles (Magworks Australia): Tougher Kakuro puzzles than the ones in the Puzzler publication, but the puzzle sizes are not as big. Also, there are usually a couple of puzzles that use a "doughnut logic" that I don't seem to get. I do Unique Rectangles, Box Line Reduction, and Set Reduction but I still feel as if I need to do a plain what-if guess by the end. Still, they are a good brain workout.

And now for some ones I am trying out:

Killer Sudoku Challenge (Magworks Australia): Issue #1 launched this month. It is nice to have an alternative to Puzzler. The difficulty of the puzzles is a step above the norm. I don't like the fact that there are givens in the easy puzzles (not one-square, cages but an 8-in-2 cage with a 3 in one of the cage squares already). That takes away the elegance of starting with no numbers. They stop doing that in the medium section so that is good. The presentation is rather plain so I'll have to see how I feel when I complete the book. I'll probably get #2 anyway because I like Killer Sudoku puzzles.

Extreme Sudoku (Puzzler UK): Tried Issue #1 and I don't see what the big deal is. I gave up on Puzzler's Sudoku magazine a while back for being too easy and thought this one would be their ramp-up. That doesn't appear to be the case. More of the same sudoku with X-Factor, Killer, and Kakuro thrown in (which I did enjoy). I won't be picking up #2 of this. I did like the Einstein cartoon of him riding the bomb a-la Doctor Strangelove.

I am looking for good KenKen/CalcuDoku puzzle books. Dell publication and Will Shortz's are way too easy! I found a series that Conceptis USA did called "MathDoku" which I recommend. You get really high multiplication products and huge cages. The magazine I purchased was issue #14 so here is hoping I can find others.

So there is some food for thought ... any other recommendations?

That's quite some list, Spittledung! There was a time I used to try every new magazine that came out in the UK and subscribed to quite a few, but that's all been whittled down now.

Sudoku Pro was the only number logic magazine I stuck with due to its variety and Sudoku Extra follows in the same vein. I'm still plodding through Issue 1 so there's no worries about not having any puzzles to do!

I'm a huge Hanjie addict. Despite two dedicated magazines in the UK, I import a Japanese Hanjie magazine called Logic Paradise. I prefer this over the UK mags, as the puzzles are tougher and larger, with large fold-outs 180x70 in size. There's also a yearly mega Hanjie. This is a massive double-sided fold-out 175x110 in size.

There was a Japanese Sudoku magazine I used to subscribe to. The name of it escapes me for now, but I can always track it down. I can recommend it as the puzzles were very tough. As well as standard Sudoku, it had a variety of variants and full page puzzles of Futoshiki, Kakuros and Slitherlinks. The puzzles were star graded from 1 to 6 and most of them were in the 4 - 6 star range! each issue also came with a massive double sided fold-out. One side would have a 59-grid Sudoku and the other side would either be a massive Kakuro or Slitherlink.

Speaking of massive Kakuro, you can get one thats 124x90 in size. Visit Nikoli.co.jp. You'll find it in the "Purchase Books" section, along with Super Hard Sudoku and a variety of other books!

I tend to do masses and masses of the same type of puzzle until I'm finally sick of the sight of them and so am always trying to find something a bit different. I tend never to do standard sudoku these days as I have done enough to last a lifetime over the past two years.

I'm also keen on on KenKen/Calcudoku at the minute and prefer harder ones which present a real challenge. Spittledung, I know you say the Will Shortz ones are too easy but have you tried his ferocious Kenken book? The puzzles in there are much more challenging than in his other books - I find them hard going, but I know you've got a mathematical background so are probably better equipped than me to deal with them!

I don't know whether you've seen the djape website www.djape.net/sudoku/wp (sorry- am not sure how to create a link) - he has all sorts of sudoku variants for sale in book form, either to purchase via amazon or viA lulu as a pdf download. His Kenken puzzles (known there as Square Wisdom) are great - there are 200 per book which get progressively harder culminating in puzzles which just have a number in each cage and it is up to you to work out the operation required to reach that number.

I have just purchased a book from Amazon entitled Masyu and Sudoku published by Nikoli. I didn't really want the sudoku puzzles but out of 150 puzzles 48 are sudoku and 102 masyu so a good balance! Considering I had never done masyu until I asked for a bit of advice on this forum I am doing quite well - am even managing some of the hard ones now.

My other favourite puzzles of the moment are Skyscrapers so I am relying on Gareth to put a few more in the next SUdoku Xtra. There don't seem to be many of those to be found on the web so if anyone knows a source for them please let me know!

Marilyn, glad to hear you're still as keen on the hanjie as ever!

I have the Nikoli Masyu and Sudoku book which I also bought just for the Masyu, and weirdly I found myself doing mainly the Sudoku instead! They're printed nice and large, which I really like, and many of them are really elegant, as you'd expect from Nikoli. I didn't think the Masyu in that book got quite hard enough, but perhaps that's from doing the really tough ones they post on their puzzle website! They certainly get more than tricky enough for anyone new to the puzzle, which I'm sure is the main target.

I see there's a big line up of these 'X and Y' books from Nikoli due out in 2010, to add to the other few already available (e.g. Sudoku & Slitherlink), and I'm sure they'll be great. What you can't easily tell from Amazon et al is that they're a good size and ring bound, much larger and smarter than I'd expected.

But it doesn't quite beat ordering their publications direct from Japan via their website, although the cost quickly adds up when you get tempted to add a whole load of their titles to your cart!

I have a few sudoku books published by Edigrama. Edigrama is a publisher based in Spain. Also, I have a few of the books in the Jumbo Sudoku series. These books have large solving grids, good for notes. The Jumbo Sudoku books were published by Mike Mepham, before he died in 2006.

This is an interesting thread - thank you Spittledung (shame about your name tho!). Have now gleaned yet more ideas for passing any remaining (very precious) spare moments. Although, have just downloaded Issue 2, so not sure I'll have many of those for a while. (Cheers Gareth - it looks great and I've still some of Issue 1 to do yet!).

I have tried and rejected many mags but over last 3 years and now only subscribe to Gareth's past/present, Beyond Suduko (mainly for the mosaic and labyrinth puzzles) and, like Marilyn, am also addicted to Hanjie (although not SuperHanjie as I find them too time consuming and a bit dull). I particularly like the ones towards end of the small mag as more challenging with loads of annoying "1"'s to place! I would love to see some more challenging ones in Xtra as the Issue 1 offering, and the "Pro" ones before, are a bit easy for an experienced Hajie(r). Like most on this site am completely bored with plain Suduko's and love all the variants and harder puzzles offered in the excellent SudukoXtra and on Gareth's sites.


Merry Christmas, fellow puzzlers! Am off to look at your suggestions now - the mince pies will have to wait (again!).

Dear Oldburd!

I am really thinking about subscribing to Beyond Sudoku,but as I have never seen a sample issue, I am a bit hesistant. I mainly know what kinds of puzzles that the magazine features, but I am wondering ,how much other puzzles than Sudoku are there? Because I am not such a sudoku fan and I prefer the other puzzles. (Because I suck at it)


Also, what are the difficulty of the magazine? I am not an advanced puzzler, I just started out doing other puzzles than arrowords.

Have you tried out any of the other magazines from Puzzler Media? I am trying to pick something to subscribe to. Thanks for any help! And Merry Christmas!

Marthe

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oldbird
This is an interesting thread - thank you Spittledung (shame about your name tho!). Have now gleaned yet more ideas for passing any remaining (very precious) spare moments. Although, have just downloaded Issue 2, so not sure I'll have many of those for a while. (Cheers Gareth - it looks great and I've still some of Issue 1 to do yet!).

I have tried and rejected many mags but over last 3 years and now only subscribe to Gareth's past/present, Beyond Suduko (mainly for the mosaic and labyrinth puzzles) and, like Marilyn, am also addicted to Hanjie (although not SuperHanjie as I find them too time consuming and a bit dull). I particularly like the ones towards end of the small mag as more challenging with loads of annoying "1"'s to place! I would love to see some more challenging ones in Xtra as the Issue 1 offering, and the "Pro" ones before, are a bit easy for an experienced Hajie(r). Like most on this site am completely bored with plain Suduko's and love all the variants and harder puzzles offered in the excellent SudukoXtra and on Gareth's sites.


Merry Christmas, fellow puzzlers! Am off to look at your suggestions now - the mince pies will have to wait (again!).

Beyond Sudoku has a reasonable mix of puzzles - there are quite a few picture puzzles, like Hanjie and other Conceptis picture puzzles, and it certainly isn't all Sudoku or variants. It doesn't have a huge puzzle count, but it's quite nice because it has some puzzles you don't see elsewhere such as Labyrinth. Oddly, one problem I've spotted from time to time is puzzles with multiple solutions - they seem to copy out or make by hand some of the puzzles (you can see the graphics elements aren't all aligned), and the Battleships puzzles in particular do sometimes have multiple solutions. (Puzzler also have a published Battleships book with broken puzzles in)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2009 04:08AM by gareth.

Thank you Gareth, for the review of Beyond Sudoku. I think I will subscribe to it next time I have money!

I spent my extra christmas money on subscriptions to Puzzler, Coffee Break Puzzles, Kriss Kross, Chat wordsearch and Puzzler Pocket Arrowords from Puzzler Media, AND Games Magazine from Kappa! I haven't received any of them yet, but I cant wait for the first issues!
I will also regularly buy printed issue of Sudoku Extra, it was kindof stupid of me to buy the online issue, since I don't have a working printer now!

In addition I have bought a lot of puzzles books (the thing with me is that when I get hooked on something, I buy it in large quantities).

One of them is Gareth's Hanjie book, I have done the first 19 puzzles in 2 days now! I am such a beginner at hanjie, and it was great with something easy to get the intuitive feeling for it. Now I am stuck on the rodent puzzle though!

I have also got a Number Link book from Nikoli , damn that is hard!

I also bought maze, spot the difference, kakuro, wordsearch, shikaku, hitori, hidato and dot to dot from Monkeying around.

Let me know if anyone wants review of any of my books!!

Dear Marthe

This is "Oldbird" aka Sue (usually post here as Sue but obv forgot myself when replying to this thread).

Re Beyond Suduko - in UK (not sure where you live) it costs £3.30 in WHS or cheaper if you subscribe. Unfortunately they only publish every 2 months and there are not enough puzzles to keep me going that long - thank heavens for the far superior Suduko Pro (RIP) and now the fantastic Xtra. Also I have noticed several times that WHS quite often have back copies selling for £1 on offer so keep a watch for these.

Regarding the puzzles, there are usually only 4 plain Sudukos (like you I am sick of them) but some quite interesting variants (only moderately challenging) included along with some quite good Hanjies, Kakuro, Hashi, Enigma, Futoshiki, Battleships and Dominoes. The best, imo, are the Mosaics and Labyrinth puzzles which are rarely (if ever) found elsewhere - although Gareth had promised to try to include them in Xtra sometime (hope he reads this!).

So a good variety of reasonably challenging puzzles and a good mag for a holiday. I feel it gets a bit "samey " but they usually include a page of some new puzzles variants, some of which are repeated. I certainly would recommend it to have alongside Xtra.

Thanks for the review, Sue! It certainly sounds interesting enough to subscribe to I don't live in UK, so I don't have the opportuntity to buy a single issue!

What is labyrinth? Is that the same as maze a pix over at Conceptis?

Marthe

Hi Marthe and Sue

Beyond Sudoku is a magazine I occasionally buy, although I hadn't bothered for quite some time. Funnily enough I was in WHS only yesterday and picked up 3 copies of Beyond Sudoku which were all marked down to half price. It's nowhere near as good as Gareth's Sudoku Xtra (I'm not being a creep, honest!) but it's quite a decent magazine with plenty of variety as Sue and Gareth have mentioned, with puzzles varying from easy to moderate to more difficult. I quite like the enigma and mosaic puzzles which are in there. (the sort of puzzles I do for a while and then leave alone for months and eventually get back to them). Puzzler magazines used to do both Mosaic and Enigma magazines which are now discontinued, but if you never bought the magazines and like these puzzles, the old magazines can all be bought as pdf downloads from www.puzzlershop.com.

I've never actually tried the labyrinth puzzles, but they are not the same as the maze a pix. You start with a blank grid and from number clues outside the grid you get to mark in the hedges/walls and so create your own labyrinth - the logic used is similar to that in hanjie I think, though I'm sure Sue will be able to tell you more.

Happy puzzling everyone!

That's right - in Labyrinth puzzles you need to create a valid maze on a square grid. You're given a set of Hanjie clues which give you the length of the various wall segments in the square maze. It's a long time since I solved one and I don't have a copy handy, but I seem to remember that you need to find a maze with a single path solution that covers every square of the grid. (So not really a maze at all - more a very windy path!). The interest comes from combining Hanjie-style solving with reasoning about keeping the maze all connected together, so it is a little bit like Slitherlink in that respect I suppose. They're quite fun, so long as you don't mind something a little fiddly since you're solving two things at once - the walls and the maze solution, and both involve drawing lines so you need to distinguish between them carefully (and your 'not here' markings) as you go. (It's one of those puzzles where the side of your hand goes grey from all the pencil!)

Puzzler describe them on their website like this: "Labyrinth puzzles – a hanjie variation not widely available, where different logical situations and solving techniques are required". (http://www.puzzler.com/magazines/SuperHanjie.htm)

The London Times has a series of 4 KenKen books.

These books are at http://amazon.co.uk and at http://bookdepository.com and perhaps http://whsmith.co.uk

Jeff

Whenever I publish KenKen puzzles I call them Calcudoku (since KenKen is a trademark, both in the UK and the US). There have been a couple of these, as well as some interesting samurai and other variant forms, in every issue of Sudoku Xtra to date.

No prob, Gareth.

DJAPE had to use Calcudoku and Hidoki (instead of Hidato) for the same reason. Copyright on name.

Jeff

Jeff,

I read somewhere up above that you had Sudoku books published by edigrama.

I purchased "Sudoku Master, International" in on a trip to one of the Caribbean islands.

I was wondering how you got yours and if your or anyone out there can let me know for certain where I can find them.

I am in the United States.

Thank you.

Emma

I'm also UK based and subscribe to Beyond Sudoku (before I'd even heard of Sudoku Xtra) which I think is pretty good, although it does indeed get a bit samey. However, many of the puzzle types it has I don't see anywhere else.

For those posters who were asking about Labyrinth, if you want to know a bit more about it, including a complete walkthrough of a simple puzzle, and several different grids to try, you can visit my website:

Labyrinth Blog

(the puzzles here are all different from those that appear in Sudoku Xtra Btw!)