Puzzling Updates (and a bonus conundrum) for January
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Chaffer Chatter
Jonathan’s Game and Puzzle Design Newsletter
January 2023 Issue
Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were restful and fulfilling.
2022 in Review
Every year I look back on my play statistics to reflect on the games that caught my eye for the first time, ones that had staying power, and ones that were hits with particular audiences. If this kind of numerical nerdity appeals to you, check it out and leave a comment on how your year compared.
Playtesting Opportunity
The next of the Holiday Hijinks games is taking shape, and Protospiel Online should give it the final push it needs to get through this phase of development. That means I’ll be looking for a few brave souls to do online playtests over the next couple of months. If you are interested, limited slots are available. Follow the link for more information!
Congratulations
A shout-out to subscriber Chelsea Widmaier who had the best solve time in the fewest hints on The Birthday Burglary last month! If you haven’t played it yet, what are you waiting for?
What I’ve Been Playing
This month I want to highlight my most-played game of 2022, Phantom Ink.
It’s a word-guessing game, much like stalwarts Codenames or Decrypto. But while I love both of those games, Phantom Ink solves some common issues: the long downtime as spymasters come up with clues in Codenames, and the difficulty of explaining the rules in Decrypto. As a result, Phantom Ink is a hit every time I pull it out, and I expect it to be an evergreen hit.
This Issue’s Gift for You
This month, I present an original variant sudoku puzzle. Many of you will be familiar with the basic rules of sudoku, but I assume nothing! We'll start out with some warmups before we get to the puzzle proper.
First up, a little toy example to explain the rule set.
In this miniature example, you need to place the digits 1 through 4 once each in every row, column, and 4x4 box of the grid. So the first row will contain 1, 2, 3, and 4 in some order, as does the second row, and so on.
Here is the example and its solution:
Try it yourself (and get used to the interface)
Next, we'll take on a full-sized classic sudoku puzzle.
This is the same, except the grid is larger and the numbers go from 1 to 9. You have likely seen these in newspapers before, but those are often computer-generated without a clear solution path. Quality handcrafted sudoku puzzles never require a "guess and test" strategy, but rather always have a series of logical steps that lead to the answer.
Finally, the main event. There are a boatload of sudoku variants out there, each of which introduces some kind of "constraint" or special twist to the basic rules. Here I present an "anti-king" sudoku, which adds the rule that a number may never be within a knight's move from itself. So for example, since there is a 5 in Row 3 Column 6, there may not be a 5 in Row 4 Column 7.
Give it your best shot, and good luck!
Have fun, and I’ll see you next time!
E-mail: jonathan@thechaffers.com
Mastodon: @jonbob@tabletop.social
BoardGameGeek: JonBob
Twitter: @unclejonbob
Copyright (C) 2023 Jonathan Chaffer. All rights reserved.
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