- What is Sudoku?
-
Sudoku is a puzzle of logic, awareness and memory. You are provided 81 squares split into a 9x9 grid. This 9x9 grid is also split into 9-3x3 blocks.
The goal of Sudoku is to place the numbers 1-9 in each column, in each row, and in each box without having any duplicate numbers in any column, row or box.
It's important not to confuse the term "puzzle" with "jigsaw puzzle". In a jigsaw puzzle, pieces are placed in a trial-and-error manner in an attempt to "fit" pieces together. This is not how Sudoku is played. Sudoku is a logic puzzle where guessing is never needed.
Therefore, Sudoku is sometimes known as logic-based Sudoku to contrast it with the popular jigsaw-style Sudoku. See this answer for more information.
- What is Sudokian?
-
Sudokian is a professional environment where players from around the world can complete Sudoku boards to increase their logic skills, awareness, and memory.
Sudokian is different from other Sudoku websites in that it provides competitive and fair scoring to ensure an accurate portrayal of your skills. Soon Sudokian will provide a global comparison system for ranking and scoring to help maximize your Sudoku workout.
- How can Sudoku help me?
-
Sudoku is a puzzle of logic, awareness, and memory and much like chess, it's an allegory of life. The skills you learn from Sudoku can be applied to every area of life. The better our logic, awareness, and memory the more affective we will be at our jobs and in our personal lives.
Furthermore, as we know, the universe has only one set of mathematical laws. Put another way, you could say that truth is absolute. That is to say, 1+1 equals 2 in the United States, India, Japan, on Mars as well as in the far corners of the galaxy. Logic is universal, therefore by improving logic through Sudoku, we have improved logic everywhere. The same came be said of awareness and memory. If you can train yourself to be aware of the numbers, you will have better awareness in evey day life and if you train yourself to remember many things in Sudoku, you will be able to remember more things in life.
- What is logic-based Sudoku?
-
Logic-based Sudoku is the true and original form of Sudoku. It is similar to chess in that you are not allowed to modify the board as you play. In Chess a player cannot say "Opps! I'm going to be in checkmate in 2 movies" and then undo a move they made 5 moves ago. This would be cheating. This is also not allowed in Sudoku. Guess is never required and board modification is cheating.
This is in stark contrast to a popular variant of Sudoku called jigsaw-style Sudoku. Even though it is a variant, it is almost always simply called "Sudoku". This version plays much more like an actual jigsaw puzzle than a logic puzzle and therefore number erasing, pencil marks, and many other methods are employed in order to fill in all the numbers according to the basic rules of Sudoku. Jigsaw-style Sudoku provides very little logic benefit to the player and, since numbers can be erased at any time, it also provides absolutely no awareness or memory benefit.
Sudokian.com offers true logic-based Sudoku free from jigsaw tactics to help people all over the world increase their logic skills, awareness and memory. Therefore, Sudokian.com can provide a fair, honest, and accurate competition for Sudoku lovers all over the world.
- What are the board rules for Sudokian?
-
To solve a Sudoku puzzle all your have to do is place the numbers 1-9 in each 3x3 box, each horizontal row, and each vertical column with no duplicate numbers in any box, row, or column.
However, at Sudokian, we keep the puzzle pure by encouraging players to solve puzzles with logic, not guessing. Because of this, the boards at Sudokian do not allow pencil marks. This helps to increase the player's skill level and also ensures the quality of the competitive nature of Sudokian.com. Players are, however, offered three undos which they may use at any time. Bonuses are given for unused undos.
Pausing the board timer is allowed. However, to ensure the competitive quality of Sudokian, if a board is ever paused, a sizable penalty is placed on bonuses.
- How many boards are available?
There are literally millions of Sudoku boards available at Sodukian.com with no two boards ever being used twice. The boards are separated into 5 difficulty levels: very easy, easy, medium, hard, and very hard.
- How are boards scored?
-
Sudokian.com boards are scored using a proprietary algorithm that takes into account...
- ...difficulty level
- ...completion time
- ...bonuses for efficiency
- ...bonuses for unsed undos
- ...and penalties on bonuses for pausing.
The completion time aspect of scoring looks at time relative to average time for a particular difficulty level. Bonuses are given for various reasons including not using an undo and having an extremely short board completion time.
This means that a player who finishes a hard board in 20 minutes will receive a higher score than a player who finished a board in 30 minutes. However, a player who finishes in 10 minutes not using a single undo who never pauses will receive a even higher score.
Scores are not just additive though. Boards that have been started, but not attempted will create a score pentalty.
Furthermore, Sudokian strongly encourages people to push themselves to try harder boards. However, Sudokian also realizes that humans rarely try something new or different if they are not pushed by an external force. Therefore, if a player plays the same difficulty level multiple times, a penalty will slowly increase for successful boards at the same consecutive difficulty level. For example, if you are accustomed to playing at the easy difficulty level and you receive 1028 points on your first Easy board then immediately try another Easy receiving 1827 points. However, if you immediately try another Easy board, even if you have a better time, you might only receive 817 points. Further attempts at the same board will produce an even high penalty (keep in mind that Sudokian's algorithms are much more complex than this, but this is a very likely example).
To avoid this penalty, simply try a harder board. You can simply start a harder board, try it for 30 seconds, then move on. This will allow you to have a better score on the easier ones. You don't have to complete a board perfectly to be successful, you just have to try.
- Why can't I use pencil marks?
-
Sudoku is a puzzle of logic, not of guessing. Sudoku puzzles can always be completed based on the information given - no guessing is needed. Sudoku boards are mathematically designed to have only one solution and to have that one solution be solvable purely by logic. When a person uses pencil marks, he or she is actually working backwards.
People also sometimes use pencil marks to mark a spot they may forget. Sudoku is a puzzle of logic, awareness, and memory. By relying on note taking, a player obtains absolutely no memory skill benefit. Furthermore, if the player is wrong, all branches of logic are altered making the board more difficult.
- Can I lose points?
-
There are two ways a player can lose points at Sudokian.com.
First, if a player starts a board and submits it without even trying. In this case there is a score penalty. You can receive partial credit for even having one number on the board. It doesn't even have to be right. This rule is in place to enhance Sudoku's status as an allegory of life. If a person comes to a situation and doesn't give any effort for either some sort of fear of so-called "failure" or for perhaps looking silly, then that person fails by forfeiting the opportunity.
Second, if a player does not submit a board. In this case there is also a score penalty. You are literally better off putting a single number on that that's wrong and submitting it than having every single number on the board right and walking away. In life, a loser is not simply someone who loses. This is a very inaccurate and extremely dangerous definition. Many people lose and can never be called a loser for it. These people often become great leaders. They repeatedly fall and get right back up, much like a young child learning to walk. A loser, however, can be defined as a who doesn't take action when he or she knows he or she should. It's not simply quitting, it's not even trying. Therefore, if a person feels they shouldn't submit a board because they made a mistake. This in itself is a mistake as partial credit is awared for incomplete and incorret boards.
Also, it should be noted that boards are continuously recorded throughout the Sudoku session. Submitting a board does not "send" the board to the server, it simply requests that the Sudokian servers give the board a grade basd on the information that is already on the server. This makes cheating nearly impossible. So, there's no reason to not send a board for fear of failure. Sending the board to the server is a success whether the board is right or wrong.
- What gives Sudokian its fair, honest, and accurate scoring?
-
There are three major components that give Sudokian its fair, honest, and accurate scoring.
First, the cardinal rule of Sudokian, that is, the singular most important rule is that board modification is not allowed. Just like in chess, a player cannot randomly decide to change a move that he or she made previously in the game. Sudokain boards do, however, provide 3 undos per board to aide in a players logic, awareness, and memory training.
Second, all logic and processing is done on the central Sudokian servers. For example, the time that a player sees is only for conveinence. The real time used is on the central servers. Therefore, timer hacking is impossible. Furthermore, basic checks are done to ensure that a hacker does not break the rules. For example, a hacker may attempt to change the available undo count on his or her local machine. Because undos are tracked on the server, not on the players machine, the undos are not hackable. This is in direct contrast to other web sites which puts most if not all processing on the players computer where its easily hackable by even the most novice of hackers.
Third, the central Sudokian systems have extensive logging mechanisms to track of every possible facet of Sudoku boards. This logged information is continually analyzed to look for potential threats. To protect the quality of the scoring system, information regarding this process is not public.
If the central Sudokian servers detect cheating or hacking attempts by any user, that user may be permanently banned from Sudokian.
- Why isn't the local timer's time used?
-
The timer on the boards at Sudokian.com is for the players conveinence only. The time on the central Sudokian.com time-server is actually used. This ensures that the times recorded are accurate and fair.
You may be shocked to discover how easy it is to pause or modify a timer in a web browser. Even if a person doesn't mean to stop the timer, there are various utilities a person may be using that might stop the timer. Therefore, the time on the main Sudokian website is always used.
- Why do the numbers I place on the board look the same as the ones already there?
All numbers on a Sudoku board have equal weight towards the final one true solution. As an allegory to life, this is exactly how every day works. Truth is absolute. In other words, that which is true is true everywhere. Therefore, there is no difference between a number that has been given to you and a number you logically deduce. If the logic is correct, the solution will be revealed. If the logic is incorrect, a contradiction will be discovered. That's exactly how life works.