Puzzle Games
Puzzle Games and Their Popularity
Puzzle games are one of the oldest kinds of educational entertainment available for children. According to popular belief, the first puzzle was created in 1760 by John Spilsbury, an engraver who made a jigsaw puzzle of the world by cutting around the edges of every country. With such an educational start to the advent of puzzles, these games are probably the only ones to be credited as beneficial for making the mind open up to challenges and to think beyond its capacity.
As the popularity of puzzle games grew, a number of variations were created such as numeric puzzles, color coded puzzles, cube puzzles, word puzzles, logic puzzles and picture puzzles, all of which were based on logical thinking and observation. One such puzzle game that grew in popularity slowly all through the 18th, 19th and 20th century is Sudoku.
A mind game, based on numeric alignment, Sudoku was created by a Swiss mathematician and popularized by a Japanese puzzle maker, who floated it all across the country for users to try it out. Today, Sudoku has become one of the most widely played puzzles on both, paper and the internet.
The Benefits of Playing Puzzle Games, Especially Sudoku
As children, we all had a few puzzle games to ourselves that we repeatedly played in our free time. However, the first time we attempted to successfully complete these puzzles, our mind was tricked, educated, stressed and compelled to think deeply about how to align the pieces to complete the picture in the shortest duration of time. Such is the power of puzzle games because they help us exert our thought processes, thereby bringing out the best in us.
Sudoku, in particular, has gained a lot of popularity as a puzzle that increases an individual’s IQ and logical abilities. Placing unique numbers in a 9 by 9 grid may sound easy at first but once you start the puzzle, a lot of thinking and contemplation are required to complete the grid without repeating numbers. Deduction, inquiry, discovery and reasoning are some of the very important skills fostered in people who are apt at solving mind games of the likes of Sudoku.
Variations of Sudoku
Popularity of Sudoku and the number of years it has been around, both have warranted the Sudoku variations invented. You may like some variations that attract you more, while others that are just too hard for you to solve. Nevertheless, they are all widely available online and as part of logic enhancing books.
Direct variations
Some very close variations of the original Sudoku have been created by freelance puzzle makers to provide more choices to gamers who are Sudoku fans. Diagonal Sudoku, Even-Odd Sudoku, Consecutive Sudoku, Geometry Sudoku, 0 to 9 Number Palace, Magic Sudoku, Sum Sudoku, Meta Sudoku and Digit Place are some popular ones.
Indirect variations
Indirect variations of Sudoku are puzzles that are not numeric but use the same guidelines and restrictions that are applied to the original Sudoku puzzle. These include Picture Sudoku, Wordoku or Word Sudoku, Jigsaw or Squiggle Sudoku, Neighbor Order, Stripe, X Sudoku, Samurai Sudoku and Killer Sudoku.