Although solving Su Doku puzzles is a fun pastime, what attracted me was the challenge of creating new puzzles. A good Su Doku puzzle for me is one which you can solve without guessing, in a logical sequence of steps from the initial configuration to a unique final solution. There should not be any need to “try out” and “backtrack”, nor should there be more than one answer.
“It’s hard to explain, but the minute you see it, you get it,” says Mike Harvey, features editor of The Times, where Su Doku first hooked English addicts in November 2004. “I think that’s one of the reasons it took off so quickly.”
It wasn’t merely a hit; it launched a national habit.
“Within a couple days, it was very obvious this was a tremendous success,” says Harvey. “The reader reaction was phenomenal. We had a contest to win a bottle of champagne by entering solved puzzles, and almost immediately we received thousands of entries. That’s very unusual for us.”