Saturday Casual Gaming 211: Grandma Gaming vol 1

Oh look, a pithy title to discuss games that are usually labeled "Grandma Games" - games your grandma or other older adults in your life may get caught up in.

I'm going to toss a few of these into different blogs, especially when I don't have a lot of time on a Saturday/Friday night to write the blog in question. Basically, I'll be talking about games that are simple, addictive, and/or things I've seen at my grandmother's house. I don't think I'll do many of the Nancy Drew games, since they're not free, and that's not really my bag. Then again, I know at least 3 people who either stream or review games like this, so... maybe?

If this is confusing, bear in mind that I'm typing a lot of this at quarter to four in the morning.

Anyway, today's Grandma Game is one of the most Grandma of games. Yet I don't think my grandmother plays it...

It's Sudoku.

I've been playing Sudoku all week.

Yeah, the weird grid & numbers game you find in the newspaper, mailings from your bank, or any puzzle book you may find.

I'm a sucker for logic puzzles of any stroke, and I'm bizarrely attracted to numbers and patterns, so of course Sudoku & I have become friends. Not perfect friends, mind, but we're tight.

"But, FC," you say, "you just listed real-world examples of Sudoku! That's not video games!"

No, no those aren't internet examples.

There are online and downloadable Sudoku games, however.

I mean, just go onto Google and type "Sudoku" into the search bar. You'll get millions of hits. I promise.

But what is Sudoku? If you don't know the game yet, you'll be baffled about why I'd even talk about it.

Sudoku is a game that's been around forever, it feels like, but it really became popular in the mid-to-late 80s in Japan, where the name originates from. Before that, I guess it was called something like "Number Place"? Ugh. Bad name. Then again, sudoku literally translates to "single number", so it's a fairly... accurate naming convention regardless of origin.

To play this game, you are presented with a bunch of boxes. Traditionally, we've got a 9x9 grid. Your goal is to place the numbers 1-9 going across, down, and within a 3x3 square, all without repeating.

An "easy" Sudoku

There are a lot of ways to play Sudoku. Not all Sudoku are 9x9, not all are number-based. This is a logic problem more than a math problem. I've seen sudoku that were made from specific animals or letters, or even patterns, rather than numbers. Regardless, the goal is to have your pattern placed perfectly. On paper, it can be very hard to figure out where you've gone wrong.

That's where the internet and other gaming platforms come in!

My favorite Sudoku, however, is at sudoku.com, which is a very nice site and does everything I like. It has a robust "hint" system (well, actually, it just solves the square you've highlighted), it has varied levels of difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert), and it does that cool thing where you can make notes in each square.

An example of "notes" in a square would be this: Using the above Sudoku, when trying to solve a square, you take note of all the numbers it cannot be. In the case of the above puzzle, I'll try to solve the 5th square to the right of the top left corner. It comes after the first "9". This square cannot contain any of the numbers in the same row, column, or 3x3 box, so it cannot contain: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. This means that the square can only either be a 1 or a 2. Of course, you don't know yet which number it is, so how do you choose? With a note-taking function, a good Sudoku game will let you put both in as potential numbers. The font shrinks down and/or changes color for your notes as opposed to your final decision, and then you work through carefully.

My notes for the above sudoku puzzle might look something like this:

Numbers that are circled are almost certainly the number that belongs there.
Numbers that have been crossed out no longer work in that spot.
It's super high tech, you know?

Now, this is a pain in the butt to erase on paper, but on a screen, some programs will actually erase your updates for you!

My biggest problem with sudoku.com is that their "hint" function can be abused to solve an entire puzzle in seconds. When you're doing an expert-level puzzle, it can be a godsend, but... it also takes some of the challenge away. Challenge can be good, guys. It really can be.

Regardless, I really enjoy Sudoku puzzles. I've played some of the Facebook arcade ones (Daily Sudoku and Sudoku Quest, for instance), but I've mostly been sticking to the Sudoku.com puzzles because I can more easily control my notes.

If you're looking for a time-waster that can actually help you learn to think your way through things logically, then you may want to give Sudoku a try!

Btw, the solution to that puzzle up there?

8 7 6 9 1 4 5 3 2

3 1 5 2 8 6 7 4 9

9 4 2 3 7 5 8 6 1

4 3 8 7 6 9 2 1 5

6 9 1 5 2 3 4 8 7

2 5 7 1 4 8 3 9 6

1 2 9 4 3 7 6 5 8

5 8 4 6 9 2 1 7 3

7 6 3 8 5 1 9 2 4

Yup.

That's a solved sudoku

I guess...

So here's the thing. You may find yourself looking at a puzzle and thinking "nope. That's not solvable." There's a way to check!

Plug your puzzle into this website, and it can help you automatically search for candidates (which is a much nicer way of doing the notes I showed you), check to see if the puzzle can even be solved, determine the relative difficulty of the puzzle, and it even allows you to check your solutions and see if you're right or wrong about a hunch!

I'd say that about covers the basics of Sudoku, so I'll let you guys get to puzzle solving on your own!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC