If you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere and don’t already know about Sudoku , I recommend skipping over this post. Sudoku is seriously addicting. Originating in Japan, this innocent looking game—a kind of crossword puzzle composed of numbers—is fast becoming ubiquitous in the States, appearing in newspapers and displayed prominently in bookstores.
The game seems simple enough. Every puzzle, whether super easy or hair-pulling, is composed of a modest 9×9 grid comprised of 3×3 subgrids. Each column, row, and subgrid must contain only one of the numbers 1 through 9. A handful of numbers are provided and the remaining numbers must be deduced through logical analysis and elimination.
Fortunately, there’s no need to buy expensive books to satisfying your addiction. There are several programs available for the Mac that will allow you to play and print an endless supply of puzzles at every level of difficulty. I’ll mention a few here, including one that also runs on Windows (Sudoku Susser). If you use Windows and can recommend some other Sudoku programs, please post a comment.
Sudoku Widget
Putting Sudoku in your Dashboard is risky, at least if you want to get any work done during the day, but this widget will do the trick when you need a quick fix.
Sudoku Widget 1.5
Bottom Line: Not the only Sudoku widget, but clearly the best. Four levels of difficulty, shows possible answers, times games, and tracks high scores.
From: Brian DeBoer
Price: Free
SudokuDan
This freeware program is only at version 0.2.2, but it looks very promising.
SudokuDan 0.2.2
Bottom Line: SudokuDan can generate Sudoku books so you can print your own, and it has a slick Mac interface.
From: Daniel P. Valentine
Price: Free
Sudoku Susser
This is probably the ultimate Sudoku program, at least on the Mac. The list of features is so extensive that I won’t even bother to start listing them here. It can be a bit daunting, but it’s also the best program to learn about Sudoku since it can hilight various patterns.
Sudoku Susser 2.5.2
Bottom Line: The ultimate Sudoku app. The others are worth a look, but Sudoku Susser is essential for every Sudoku addict.
From: Robert Woodhead
Price: Tipware (free, but tips are encouraged)
Platform: Macintosh and Windows
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5 Responses to “Playing Sudoku on Your Mac”
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March 7th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
We play those at school (in Grade 6, i’m 12) and they afre pretty boring when you have to do one evry week…but at the beggining they were pretty fun.
March 7th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
I guess they do get old after a while.
March 9th, 2006 at 11:44 am
I’ve just released UniSudoku, a new program for Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later that allows you to play the popular game of Sudoku. Enjoy unlimited puzzle generation or enter your favorite puzzles from the newspaper, books and the Internet directly into UniSudoku.
Product homepage
Direct download (152KB)
Free trial expires after 10 games, $15 to purchase.
Why do I think this is worth mentioning since the programs Robert mentions above are free?
- unlimited puzzle generation
- clean “Mac-like” interface
- intuitive interface along with friendly system for entering “pencil marks” and guesses lets you stay in the meditative state of solving a Sudoku
- unique feature allows you to highlight one digit at a time to focus on solving that digit (e.g. all the twos)
- and more, but try it yourself and decide
November 5th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
You left out the ONLY head to head, live online and offline competitive and co-op games, Su Doku available:
Su Doku Live
See http://www.deadpixelgames.com
It has a Mac version and THAT is the ultimate sudoku. Simply because you can play it with others, instead of alone, against humans instead of a clock.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:29 am
[...] In search of the best Sudoku widget for Tiger OS 10.4, I stumbled across Handpicked Software’s article on Playing Sudoku on Your Mac. [...]