TIL about variant sudoku puzzles, “sudoku with strange rules like thermometers, ratio dots, cages, and other things that you’re probably already confused by”.
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Comments 4
Yes! I caught the variant sudoku bug a few years ago when this video went viral. It’s way more fun and satisfying than a video about sudoku has any right to be. I think it would be right up your street, Jason.
Seconding Simon's recommendation of the Cracking the Cryptic youtube channel if you're the type of person who enjoys enthusiastic Brits solving difficult Sudoku variants (while occasionally yelling "bobbins!" in frustration).
I subscribe to CtC as well, and if the title of a video raves about the quality of the sudoku, I’ll click on the description for the video, which includes a link to play it yourself. My favourites are the ones called “Chaos”, where the regions are not 3x3 boxes arranged 3x3, but nine different shapes that you need to discover. So much fun.
Of course I missed this post! I think I got into variant sudokus from the Cracking the Cryptic "Miracle Sudoku" post on this very site a few years back. Most of Simon's puzzles are generally too difficult for me to try myself, though Mark's are often a little easier; otherwise BremSter posts pretty accessible puzzles on youtube. In addition to those feed I recommend James Sinclair's Artisanal Sudoku from the image, he posts some quality variant sudokus on his substack (https://artisanalsudoku.substack.com/) every week and they all use the most common variant rules rather than introducing unique rulesets (and he doesn't do a lot of "shade the whole board such that..." puzzles which are my least favorite). All of these and the CtC puzzles are on https://sudokupad.app/ which is a pretty near perfect sudoku app imo.
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