Sudoku is a globally addictive puzzle game, and yet there are many lesser known facts about it. Let’s see the most amazing facts about Sudoku puzzles.
1. Sudoku became a global hit in 2005. Measuring its popularity in an enigmatic world, it is the biggest phenomenon since Rubik’s Cube in the 1980s.
2. Sudoku is not originally Japanese, but an American game. Modern Sudoku was invented in the United States under the name “Number Place” (in 1979) and later popularized as “Sudoku” by the Japanese publisher Nikoli. The creator of “Number Place”, Howard Garns, died in 1989, before the game reached its worldwide popularity.
3. Most of the Sudoku games on the internet (and even in the newspapers) show wrong puzzles, due to the laziness of the developers or the non-obvious complexity of Sudoku and there are fatal flaws in Sudoku generators that do not create unique puzzles or they miscalculate the level of difficulty.
4. The puzzles have a large number of possible combinations and levels of complexity. There are 6 sextillion possible puzzles, but only 5,472,730,538 of them are valid (when they boil down to essentially different solutions) and you’d need a few lifetimes to solve them all. There are many difficulty levels (at least 5, although it’s an arbitrary number) and there are enough challenges for any gaming skill.
5. It is not a math game at all, there are no calculations involved, it is a pure logic game. Sudoku is semantically independent and can be easily understood by players all over the world in contrast to good old crossword puzzles that need to be adapted to all languages. Best of all, Sudoku sometimes doesn’t even come in numbers, but in pictures, letters, or symbols.
6. The first world Sudoku championship was held in Italy in 2006. After that, in 2007 in Prague, Czech Republic and the last one in 2008 in Goa, India. In 2009 it will be held in Slovakia.
7. Some people call it a newspaper saver because it increases your sales and keeps your reading audience engaged. Newspapers around the world immediately adopted it because people like to solve Sudoku every day, just like crossword puzzles.
8. If you play it regularly, you can increase your focus and concentration, prevent or relieve depression, dementia and even Alzheimer’s disease, according to some studies. Sudoku is good for any age between 6 and 120 years old, because it develops mental skills and keeps them in good condition. It is a highly addictive game without any side effects and while it can get a person deeply involved in it, their brain will thank you for it.
9. There are many Sudoku players all over the world, but no one really knows the exact number of them, because there are various Sudoku games: downloadable Sudoku for computers, online Sudoku and many others.
Conclusion:
As you can see, there are many interesting facts about Sudoku. But the main point is to play these puzzles every day so that you can feel the magic of it. If you don’t play Sudoku yet, it’s good to start now and join the worldwide community of fans. If you play Sudoku, then teach someone who doesn’t, because it’s a rare occasion in life to get an evaluation for putting a new addiction in someone’s life.
