You would imagine that with such a name this puzzle originated in Japan, but it has been around for many years in the United States and in the UK. However, the Japanese found an example under the title “Number Place’ in an American magazine and translated it as something quite different: su meaning number and doku meaning single unit. It immediately caught on in Japan where number puzzles were much more prevalent than word puzzles. Crosswords don’t work very well in the Japanese language.
Sukoku was first published in the late 1970’s in North America in New York by the publisher “Dell Magazines”. Dell was known as a specialist when it game to puzzles of logic and ability. Dell published Sudoku as “Number Place” in its Math Puzzles and Logic Problems magazine.
It has not been recorded who designed the Americanized puzzle but suspicion falls on Walter Mackey who was one of Dell’s constructors of puzzles. In Japan, Sudoku was first introduced by Nikoli in 1984. The puzzle appeared in the Monthly Nikolist in April as “Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru”. This can be translated to “the numbers must be there in only on instance”. In 1986 Nikoli introduced two different versions of Sudoku as the popularity of the puzzle increased. No more than 30 “givens” were allowed that the grid became symmetrical. Sudoku is now published in many mainstream Japanese periodicals, including the Asahi Shimbun. The trademark name of Sudoku is still held by Nikoli while other publications in Japan use other names.
Sudoku quickly spread to the computer. In 1989 DigitHunt was created for the Commodore 64 by a company called Loadstar/Softdisk Publishing. This home computer version of Sudoku allowed people of all ages to enjoy the game in a computerized style.
Sudoku is now published in a variety of places including the New York Post and USA Today. The puzzle is also reprinted by Kappa in GAMES magazine. Many times you will find Sudoku included in puzzle anthologies which include The Giant 1001 Puzzle Book. In these books Sudoku is usually titled something like “Nine Numbers”. Surprisingly Dell, who invented the Americanized version of the puzzle, has failed to cash in on this big puzzle rage.
The Sudoku puzzle reached craze status in Japan in 2004 and the craze spread to the United States and the UK through pages of national newspapers. The Daily Telegraph uses the name “Sudoku” but you may the puzzle called “su doku” in other places. However, there is no doubt that the word has been adopted into modern parlance, much like the word “crossword”.
Continue to Chapter 2...
