Number games and grids like Sudoku have been around for hundreds of years. Today, these are everywhere – you’ll find them in newspapers, magazines, websites, and also as smartphone applications. But, believe it or not, the modern-day Sudoku dates back to almost 4000 years.
Overview
Howard Garns is officially credited for the invention of this puzzle game. His version of the free Sudoku puzzle game first appeared in the Dell Puzzles magazine in 1979 by the name “Number Place.” But, it wasn’t an immediate hit in the US then. However, five years later, in 1984, the game became incredibly popular when the editor of Nikoli magazine introduced it to the Japanese audience under the name “Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru,” which translates to “the digits are limited to one occurrence.” Eventually, the name got abbreviated to “Su Doku.”
This game brought about a revolution in the history of Sudoku puzzles, making Sudoku the best-seller in Japan. Since Sudoku has always been a logic-based number game, it worked well in Japan because language-based puzzles are always challenging to incorporate as crosswords. For these reasons, most people believe that the game is of Japanese origin, but that’s not true.
Though Howard Garns is recognized as the inventor of Sudokus, he’s still far from the first person to actually discover the concept. Famous Swizz mathematician, Leonhard Euler, derived the “Latin Squares,” which is similar to today’s Sudoku but was then based on the concepts of “Magic Squares.” So, the idea of these number games in general dates back to ancient China.
Global Outbreak
Even after getting published in the Dell Puzzles magazine, the reach of this game was virtually confined for around two decades until a man from New Zealand, found these in Tokyo and decided to develop a dedicated computer program to produce Sudoku puzzles on the spot. What turned the free Sudoku puzzle games into a worldwide phenomenon was the effort of Wayne Gould, who brought these puzzles to life in the West. Post-2004, the popularity got massive, and since then, there’s no looking back.
Sudoku Today
Sudoku has worked its way into the lives of millions all around the globe as a daily staple of fun, entertainment, and great mental exercise.
So now, with your Sudoku knowledge established, test your skills with these wonderful free Sudoku puzzle games available in this app called Sudoku.com developed by Easybrain. It’s a big hit on the Google Play Store with more than 10 million downloads. It offers 10,000+ free Sudoku puzzle games along with intuitive gameplay. The players have to place numbers 1 to 9 in a specific pattern on a 9×9 grid, where each figure is to be used only once in every row, column, and 3×3 sub-grid.
So, take your part in some of this history – install the app right away!
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