Try puzzle games like Sudoku

The most useful thing to know before you try puzzle games like sudoku is that a correctly constructed puzzle never requires guessing. If you find yourself guessing, either the puzzle is faulty or there is a deduction available that you have not spotted, and knowing that changes how you approach a stuck grid.

Why try puzzle games like Sudoku is worth an hour

Two techniques carry you through almost everything at easy and medium level. Scanning, checking where a given number can go in a row, column or box, solves most cells. Pencil marks, writing small candidate numbers into empty cells, exposes the pairs and triples that unlock the rest. Beyond those, harder grades introduce named patterns worth learning one at a time.

How to try puzzle games like Sudoku step by step

1. 1

   Scan for forced placements first

   For each number, check where it can go in each box. Many cells resolve from this alone.

2. 2

   Add pencil marks when scanning stalls

   Small candidate numbers in each empty cell. Tedious to write and it exposes everything that follows.

3. 3

   Look for pairs and triples

   Two cells in a unit sharing the same two candidates eliminates those candidates everywhere else in it.

4. 4

   Never guess

   A proper puzzle is always solvable by deduction. Guessing produces a mess you cannot unwind.

5. 5

   Only step up when a grade is easy

   Move to harder puzzles once the current level stops being a struggle, not before.

Tips to get more out of it

• Use pencil on paper, or an app with a proper candidate mode. Erasing cleanly matters more than it sounds.
• If you are stuck, recheck a completed unit for an error. Most impasses are mistakes rather than difficulty.
• Other logic puzzles use the same deductive habits: nonograms, kakuro and slitherlink all transfer.

Ways to mix it up

If sudoku bores you, variant grids with extra constraints add new deductions without new difficulty. If you want something with a different flavor, nonograms produce a picture at the end, which many people find considerably more satisfying.

Try puzzle games like Sudoku: frequently asked questions