Sudoko

Sudoko Puzzles General Information

Sudoko is the Japanese name of the popular game that was originally called  Number Place in English. In Japanese Sudoko is an abbreviation of a phrase that means "the digits must remain single"; The puzzle was invented  by Howard Garns a retired architect and was published in 1979 by Dell's Magazines in Math's Puzzles and Logic Problems magazine.The name they used as we mentioned above was Number Place. So regardless what most people think, sudoko isn't a Japanese game.

Sudoko was introduced in Japan by Nikoli, a leading Japanese puzzle publisher in the paper Nikolist in April 1984 .The puzzle was named by Kaji Maki, who was the president of Nikoli. The game became extremely popular in Japan fairly quick and today there are hundreds of magazines that publish sudokopuzzles every month.

Until a few years ago the Sudoko or Numbers Place as it was originally called was almost unknown to western countries, although it was invented there. However, when newspapers in USA and in Great Britain like the New York Post and the London Times started publishing sudoko puzzles, it became an instant hit. The sudoko craze has now taken western countries by storm. There are thousands of passionate sudoko players all over the world and I must say that sudoko is one of the most addicting games available. 

Finally it should be mentioned that sudoko is a great mental exercise and it has been reccommended by the Teachers magazine as a great exercise for logical reasoning, so start playing sudoko.