Sudoku is a mathematical puzzle where people have to fill in missing squares to get a row/column of numbers 1-10. The numbers though, can only be used once per row/column, Logic is crucial in this game because it is not as easy as it appears.
Sudoku itself has a pretty interesting history. The current form of this came originally came from the Latin square, which was credited to Leonhard Euler. In a Latin square, numbers can only be used once in a grid and it goes the same to Sudoku. During the 1970’s, Dell Magazines started to produce what they called “Number Place.” The puzzle followed the concept of the Latin square except that this one was on a 9×9 square grid.
A few years later in Japan, the head of the company Nikoli, Maki Kaji, started to publish their own version of Number Place. This was when the name Sudoku was given. The overall structure was changed as well because the amount of numbers appearing got restricted. Soon the game became a smash hit and was featured just ab
out everywhere.
Despite the popularity of it in Japan, it took over two decades before this game expanded into other countries. The first country to get swept with Sudoku mania was England in 2004. The instigator was a man named Wayne Gould, a retired Hong Kong judge originally from New Zealand. He came across the puzzles in Japan and spent years developing a program to make them. Finally, in 2004 he convinced The Times (a newspaper in England) to publish the puzzles he had made using his program. To the surprise of everyone (except perhaps Gould), the game became a hit.
By 2005, the game of Sudoku had once again left its mark; this time in the United States. Major companies were putting up their own puzzles daily like a crossword puzzle. The amazing thing is that it takes hours to create just one puzzle!