I LOVE Sudoku.
I love that there is always a solution. I love that math is involved. I love that it is calming and fun.
Wednesday the 9th was International Sudoku Day (it was quite a busy week last week). Instead of just enjoying solving some Sudoku puzzles, I decided to try to make my own puzzles.
And now I have a much greater appreciation for Sudoku puzzle makers because it is NOT easy.
First you have to create the solution, which means filling in the grid completely as it would look once the puzzle was solved. The next step is to delete pairs until you reach the difficulty level you want the puzzle to be. I made a 4x4 and a 6x6 grid. Simple enough. But the 9x9 grid proved much more difficult. I found it challenging to fill in the grid by randomly entering numbers without repeating any digits. By the time the grid was almost complete, the numbers would not fit correctly into the puzzle. After almost a dozen attempts, I finally got one solution grid filled.
I think it’s fair to say that I won’t be attempting to make my own Sudoku puzzles anymore.
Below are the puzzles I created. They’re not the most difficult puzzles to solve, but this is what you get. Have fun!
