| ![]() |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment
ABOUT About This Site - RSS Feed Ian Bogost (editor) Gonzalo Frasca (editor emeritus) SPONSORS
COMMUNITY
|
Branded Sudoku: Snakes, DaVinci September 3, 2006 - by Ian Bogost
I haven't seen The Sudoku Code, which seems to be the more interesting one, but I did flip through Snakes on a Sudoku today. I can assure you that there are snakes on every single puzzle. Or around them, at least. Comment from Tablesaw on September 3, 2006
Both are fairly interesting, from different puzzling perspectives. The Sudoku Code comes from the tradition of puzzles leading to metapuzzles in puzzle hunts like the MIT Mystery Hunt. There have been a few Sudoku variations in past hunts (783658 and One of a Kind. In The Sudoku Code, sets of two puzzles work together to provide part of a long message. Knowing the message before or after the set you are working on allows one to add extra information to the solving of both number places. Snakes on a Sudoku is based on a more established variant on number place where irregular regions replace the standard square regions. You can find it as Geometry Number Place in Ed Pegg, Jr.'s article on Sudoku Variations. Snakes on a Sudoku adds a constraint for the regions that they be "snakelike"; the region can't branch or touch itself. Geometry number place can create a very different solving experience; regions account for more and less of each row or column, disrupting the balance of a standard number place. Whether either is "more interesting" depends on your attitude toward solving number-place puzzles. I'm glad to finally have some variants after the glut of number places, regardless of how they get marketed. Comment from Ian Bogost on September 3, 2006
Thanks Tablesaw, this is great additional information. I've seen the different region-based Sudoku, but can you explain a little more about the snakelike region constraint? Comment from Tablesaw on September 3, 2006
In terms of dividing the grid into "snakes," I've given the basic definition already: no branching, no touching. If it helps, you can add "no bunching." "Snakes" appear in some other logic puzzles as well. Dave Tuller and Michael Rios's Challenge Your Brain features a section called "Snaky Tiles" where the challenge is to divide a grid into these "snaky" segments. It's easiest to explain by example. Look again at the geometry number place I linked to. The region in the top right corner branches, there's a square where the region creates a T intersection. The same is true for the region in the bottom right. The region in the top left either "bunches" or touches itself. Either way, you can see the bulge where four squares touch each other. In this grid, the only "snaky" region is the one in the bottom left. I haven't solved enough of this variant to know how different it is from geometry variants generally (I don't intend to buy SoaS until I'm finished with The Sudoku Code). But looking at a few of the grids, it appears that the number of reagions in a row or column varies widely, with a few having only one two regions, and several having more than four. I would imagine that this would more often disrupt the solving by forcing the solver to consider more sources of information for certain cells. POST A COMMENT
TRACKBACKS
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.watercoolergames.org/mt-tback.cgi/613
Links to weblogs that reference Branded Sudoku: Snakes, DaVinci will be listed here.
|
SELF PROMOTION
My New Column: Disjunctive Play
Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, Disjunctive Play. The column mostly discusses Jason Rohrer's new game Between, but ... Missile in the HASTAC The HASTAC consortium has just announced a forum hosted by their HASTAC Scholars fellows on digital games, entitled Participatory Play: ... Pekid Oil Molleindustria has released a new game about the history and hypothetical future of oil, called Oiligarchy. The game feature's M's ... Announcing the Journalism & Games Research Project I'm excited to announce the first public materials from a research project on Journalism and Videogames, which I've been pursuing ... Politics and Games at Harvard It's been quiet around here! Next week I'll share the cause of it. Until then, I did a talk at ... Click Archaeology One More Election Game My New Column: The Birth and Death of the Election Game Truth Invaders Mad Men Jeopardy FAVORITES Does expression come in HD too?
Food Force
A Force More Complicated
PSP and Performance Intelligence
A Review of the Leapster
ALSO VISIT
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © Ian Bogost & Gonzalo Frasca, unless otherwise noted. Re-printing for commercial purposes by permission only (contact us: ). Re-printing for educational purposes is allowed with proper attribution. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||