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Latest news about new issues and other forthcoming content.
Re: Christmas Hanjie - 12 years ago
Thanks - I did better than last year at the World Puzzle Championship, so I was very happy with that! You should see the speed of some of the world's top solvers though - I don't have a chance of ever competing with them. I'm glad to say that Christmas Hanjie is now also available in pre-printed form from Lulu, as well as for download as a PDF. The links are on the Books download page.by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Christmas Hanjie - 50 Festive Picture Puzzles - 12 years ago
My new puzzle book, Christmas Hanjie, is now available for order from amazon.com, or if you are not in the US then you will probably prefer to order from Lulu instead. Alternatively you might wish to download a PDF and print it yourself. Packed with 50 beautifully-drawn festive picture puzzles, this special Christmas-themed book of Hanjie logic puzzles also includes full solving instructionsby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Sudoku Xtra 17 - 12 years ago
Further to this, it isn't going to happen before I go off to the World Puzzle Championships in Hungary this coming week (as part of the UK team) - so it's at least a fortnight away now I'm afraid.by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Sudoku Xtra 17 - 12 years ago
For those who are wondering, I'm hoping to have Sudoku Xtra 17 finished around the end of the month, so in roughly a fortnight's time. Thanks to everyone for their patience - in future hopefully the gap between issues will be slightly smaller again.by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Free shipping on UK printed copies! - 12 years ago
There's never been a better time to get printed copies of Sudoku Xtra - for the next week Lulu are waiving their usually significant shipping costs on all titles. Just use code OCTGROUNDUK305 at the checkout! This is a rare offer from them so take advantage of it while you can - perhaps to get some early Christmas gifts?! Only one order per person with this code is allowed, and there's a maximby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Tiktaka - 12 years ago
QuoteVexusPD As for other Tiktaka puzzles ... it is going to be a guest puzzle in future issues of "Sudoku" and "Takegaki" magazines from Puzzler Media which I'm very excited about. (sorry for advertising rival magazines Gareth). That's brilliant news! And no worries - Puzzler's best-selling Sudoku magazine sells of the order of 10,000 times as many copies as Sudoku Xtra, soby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Issue 16??? - 12 years ago
If anyone else is having trouble saving the PDF from Google Chrome, you can do one of the following from the download page: Right-click the download link, choose "Save as..." and then choose the folder you want to save to. OR Click the link, which opens it in the Google Chrome PDF viewer (unless it randomly stops working, which happens sometimes. If it takes forever to load cloby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Issue 16 PDF updated - 12 years ago
If you downloaded issue 16 prior to 11:00am Monday morning (UK time), you might like to know that I've updated the PDF to fix an issue whereby some of the Frameless Sudoku puzzles had the wrong solutions. Sorry for any inconvenience, and my sincere apologies to Deb for this. (I had repeated one solution, and two of them had got mangled when I exported the magazine to a PDF - I have no idea why, bby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Issue 16??? - 12 years ago
For my part I think Tiktaka is fantastic - it's one of the most interesting new puzzles I've seen in a long time, and I really enjoyed them all. I think being able to consider shapes individually helps you tackle it in manageable chunks as you go, so it's not too intimidating. That said I'd love to see some harder ones too. (I didn't include Vexus's ratings in the magazine but these were all laby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Issue 16 - 12 years ago
Glad you've downloaded it okay, Sue - honestly I sometimes struggle to save PDFs myself. Google Chrome is particularly bad for this - really it is very badly designed in this respect - but also the Adobe embedded PDF reader also often hides this function away too. Good news that issue 16 is going down well so far!by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Puzzle requests - 12 years ago
Well I made a start on these requests in issue 16, which features Star Battle and Thermometers, plus shape puzzles courtesy of Vexus Puzzle Design and both No Four In A Row and Frameless Sudoku courtesy of Deb Mohanty, as well as more Labyrinths from Nathan Roberts and another (partially) negative number Killer Sudoku. Maybe I'll try some of the others mentioned above for issue 17.by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Issue 16??? - 12 years ago
Hi, Sounds like your web browser is trying to be clever - sometimes I find it very hard to work out how to save a PDF too! There's nothing different about this issue, however. Have you tried right-clicking (ALT-clicking on a Mac) on the download link and choosing "Save as" / "Save Target As..." or similar? This will work. Hope this helps! If not I can email you the PDFby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Sudoku Xtra 16 now out - overloaded with puzzles! - 12 years ago
Sudoku Xtra 16 is now available for download and in pre-printed form from Lulu, and it is packed to bursting point with a ridiculous number of different puzzles! This issue there are a staggering 141 puzzles, including a record number of giant full-page ones, consisting of over 60 different types of logical challenge! Over-size puzzles include the cover Tapa as well as sprawling Suraromu, Masby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Samurai Star variants - 12 years ago
Okay, it'll be the next one I do, I promise!by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Issue 16??? - 12 years ago
I don't think I explicitly announced it would be bi-monthly - I just extended the "next issue will be available" dates inside the magazine a bit each issue. In fact I'm not directly aiming for bi-monthly but rather "not less than 1 month and not greater than 2 months" between issues - ideally I'd like to have each issue no more than a month and a half from the previous one iby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Issue 16??? - 12 years ago
Hiya everyone, As David says, issue 16 is almost ready and amongst other treats it's going to have an amazingly packed Community Puzzles section! Along with the names mentioned above, we have some lovely new shape puzzles from Vexus Puzzle Design that I really enjoyed solving, plus some Battleship puzzles from Clarity Media, and some great new puzzles from Anuraag which include Heytori (a mixby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
New Sudoku Xtra books now online - 12 years ago
I've just updated the "Sudoku Xtra Specials" Books page, adding (finally) the two "volume 2" 16x16 and 25x25 Sudoku books that I added to Amazon.com close to a year ago, as well as the 12x12 book that I added then too. These are now finally also available for download and self-printing, and I will be adding the Lulu versions tomorrow. I've also added four brand new books, wby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Sudoku Pro magazine - 12 years ago
Hi Amanda, Unfortunately Sudoku Pro only returned for 10 issues and then was replaced with Arrow words by My Hobby Store, so you won't find it in any shops any more. The problem was that for whatever reason they couldn't get it back into WH Smiths - they said there were already too many similar titles, or so I was told. Of course there are actually no similar titles and they'd stocked it for yby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Tapas - 12 years ago
Heyawake was a "slow burner" for me - when I first did them I found them quite tedious since I spent quite a bit of time doing the house keeping of looking for two rooms in a row, but once you get used to them you get more of a feel for how they flow. Now it's one of my absolute favourites. I personally try to avoid making puzzles where the aim is just not to miss obvious stuff, but ratby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Puzzle requests - 12 years ago
Awesome - thanks for all the ideas! Kuromasu are great, I agree - I'd almost forgotten about them all together! Non-consecutive sudoku is easy since it's just a consecutive sudoku without any white bars. I think by and large it's more fun with the white bars, but I could certainly try making some without them! Anglers and 'tents and trees' are both fun puzzles - I find the latter tendby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Puzzle requests - 12 years ago
Quotelogik66 I would love to see puzzles like Starbattle, Pentomino puzzles, No Four in a row, Thermometers. Excellent ideas! I've always found Star Battle puzzles my personal nemesis (it's all those jigsaw regions - I'm slow at jigsaw sudoku too) so that would be great for me to practice making anyway. Thermometers is a good idea too, and perhaps also Magnets - I should perhaps mix in aby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
All back issue content listings now online - 12 years ago
I've updated the magazines page, which shows all of the back issues of Sudoku Xtra, so you can now click to view the full puzzle contents of any issue, from the current issue 15 all the way back to the very first issue from 2009. I've listed every different type of puzzle, so for example you can now see that issue 1 featured Sikaku but it hasn't appeared since, except for the Sikaku Dots variaby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Puzzle requests - 12 years ago
If there are any particular puzzles you'd like to see in issue 16, which haven't been in recent issues, please let me know! I'm always keen to make new types, so if you have any favourites you haven't yet seen please let me know! For example I added Tapa to issues 14 and 15 because I know it is something of a favourite of various solvers and it isn't widely published. I'd probably have triedby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Tapas - 12 years ago
I'm glad you like the Tapas. I really enjoy this sort of area-shading puzzle, which reminds me a lot of Nurikabe. They're probably a little easier than some of my other puzzles because I'm not that familiar with them myself, so I don't yet have some really tough tactics to hide inside them. On the basis of your comment above, however, I've made a giant Tapa for the cover of issue 16, which hopby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Ultimazum - 12 years ago
Thanks for the feedback - that's fantastic! As the first one illustrates, if you design them to solve like numberlink then you can make them really tough, so what I like is that you can have a puzzle such as the second one which superficially looks challenging but actually turns out to be nice and easy. It's also a puzzle you can try to solve by luck if you want to since you can use reasonable juby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Amazon Versions? - 12 years ago
And they're now all available - that was pretty quick of Amazon! The descriptions aren't there yet but the pictures and ability to order for immediate dispatch are. You can find them on Amazon directly or via the links on the magazines page. I know what you mean about Amazon gift certificates - I have a load of UK ones from topcashback I'm waiting to use.by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Amazon Versions? - 12 years ago
And done. All issues are now available on Lulu, and have been uploaded to Amazon so will appear on Amazon.com in the next week or so.by gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Amazon Versions? - 12 years ago
Good luck with the choice! The Slitherlinks are perhaps a little easier this month, except maybe for the first which is a little tricky, so if you like those they might be a good place to start. Alternatively the top Tapa is a relatively gentle introduction, or if you fancy something a bit meatier then the cover Masyu should take a while without having any really hard bits. Issues 13 and 14 arby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Re: Amazon Versions? - 12 years ago
Very good question. Sorry for the big delay on these - I've actually already submitted issue 13 to Amazon (I did it this afternoon!) and issue 14 is uploading now, then afterwards I'll upload issue 15 too. I just have to wait for them to be approved, which sometimes takes one or two attempts (sometimes they object to me mentioning Amazon in the text), but once approved they should appear on Amaby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
Ultimazum - 12 years ago
Sudoku Xtra 15 introduces a new puzzle of my own devising, Ultimazum. It's a path-based puzzle with very simple rules but it offers a lot of possible variation in terms of how it solves - for example in the magazine the first one requires a bit of experimentation/"overall" thinking, whereas the second and third solve more like traditional step-based logic puzzles. I'd love to know whaby gareth - Sudoku Xtra Discussion Forum
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