Kakuro is a puzzle that is similar to Sudoku. The
puzzles have square grids which look like a mix between a crossword puzzle and
a Sudoku board. The similarity with a crossword puzzle is that it has half
black half white squares which are separated by a diagonal line. All of the
white squares that are adjacent in a certain row or column are called a run.
The objective of the puzzle is to fill all of the white squares with numbers
from one to nine. Like said before, the Kakuro puzzle is extremely similar to
the Sudoku puzzle; however, the difference is the rules on how to play and the
overall shape of the board. Kakuro is
one of the oldest puzzles dating back to 1950. Back then, the Kakuro puzzles
used to also be called Cross Sums. Cross Sums have since been famous
everywhere including all of the different gaming magazines in many countries
around the world, not just the United States. These puzzles were first brought
to Japan in 1980 by Maki Kaji, who was the president of Nikoli puzzles, for improvement to better the puzzles. At
first he named the puzzles Kasan Kurosu which is a mix of a pronunciation of
the word “cross” and the very own Japanese word for “addition”. Six years
later, the puzzles were renamed as the Kakuro puzzles, which were abbreviated.
From then on, they became a huge success everywhere and were sent back out in
the world. Nikoli, up to this date, has now released and sold over a million
Kakuro books. Even though the Kakuro puzzles are very popular and famous in
Japan, they are a big success across other countries including America. The
Kakuro puzzle is the second most popular puzzle in Japan following the Sudoku
puzzle.
Kakuro differs
from Sudoku is that Sudoku is not only easier to understand, but also has the
same puzzle format; the same square appears within every puzzle. Kakuro, on the
other hand, intrigues the minds of the
people trying to do the puzzle by its different shapes. The way that the
difficulty level is distinguished is also by the shapes. The smaller the
puzzles, the easier they are most likely. The larger puzzles are more
difficult. Even though Sudoku is a great thinking puzzle, Kakuro is more challenging and fun by putting a mind to work.
The way that the game is played is that there are
numbers 1 through 9 which need to be placed in the blocks between the two and
nine empty cell blocks that are horizontal or vertical inside of a larger grid.
In the blacked out cell blocks, there is a number which is also known as a
clue. This clue is what should be the sum of each of the cell blocks. The cell
blocks are divided halfway by diagonal lines; the top is for vertical problems
and the left is for horizontal problems. Just like in Sudoku, each number can
only be used once in each of the cell blocks.
Going step by step there are seven grids above. The
first one represents the original Kakuro puzzle unsolved. Throughout the
puzzle, the light blue numbers in the black cell boxes represent the codes or
the targets and the dark blue numbers is what we are solving for. To start off,
the 4 is highlighted the light blue color, this shows that we can solve for the
white boxes horizontally. So we have to first think what could add up to the
number 4. Well, we know that a number cannot be repeated, so 2 and 2 would not
work. However, the numbers 1 and 3 do work. Now since there is a 3 already near
the 4 we know that later on we would need to add up to 3 so this shows that the
1 will go in the spot instead. Next, we can now put the 2 in the vertical row
to the three since we already know that 1 and 2 add up to 3 and the 1 is
already there. Now we would need to solve for the next 3 in the black box
across from the 4 that we started out with. Since there is already a 2 in that
row of white boxes, the 2 would not be able to go in the first spot and would
have to be reversed, putting the 1 first. Now there are only two spots left to
solve so the puzzle should be extremely easy from here. The 3 all the way at
the bottom highlighted in the light blue is the next target. Since there is
already a 2 on the far white corner to the right, we know that a 1 will add up
to three so we can put a 1 in the last white spot on the bottom leaving us with
one last spot on the Kakuro board. The target will be both the 9 and the 8
because the blank is in the middle for both of those, but either way the number
will be the same for the targets and will add up to the given targets. The last
spot will contain a 5 because in order to get 8 we already have 3 which is the
2 plus the 1 and now we just need 8 minus 3 which is 5. Same goes for the 9.
The 3 plus the 1 will equal 4 and then we just do 9 minus 4 which is 5 so it
works. The Kakuro puzzle is solved.
"Learn How to Play Kakuro at Kakurolive." Learn How to Play Kakuro at Kakurolive. N.p., 2005. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.kakurolive.com/about-kakuro.php>.
"Kakuro History." Conceptis Puzzles. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.conceptispuzzles.com/index.aspx?uri=puzzle/kakuro/history>.
Ecke, Volker, Christine Von Renesse, Julian F. Fleron, and Philip K. Hotchkiss. "Other Puzzles: Kakuro, Radon/Kaczmarz, and What’s Inside of You." Discovering the Art of Mathematics Games and Puzzles. 2009. 37-41. Print.
I never knew this game existed. Honestly, I think I would like playing this game more than sudoku. It seems more diverse than sudoku because of this different shapes that can appear. Even though this game may be a little harder to pick up than sudoku, it still seems fun to play. Maybe it is because of the slight bit more rules Kakuro has is what makes it 2nd to sudoku in popularity.
ReplyDeleteI, like Zach, did not know this game existed and find it much easier to solve than Sudoku. After reading through your summary and following the instructions of your walk-through on the game I was very eager to play the game. Learning about the history of these puzzle games is truly awesome to me. Its one thing to know how to play the game but to know its origins is also cool. Great summary and thank you for introducing me to this game!
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of this game before. I really like the concept of the whole game and find it pretty easy to understand. I think that you did a great job summarizing this whole concept and making it understandable for the common person. I was wondering how you found this game yourself?
ReplyDeletei like the others was unaware of the existence of this game. its similarities to sudoku are numerous which makes me wonder if sudoku copied this game. As to a question that was raised as i read, does the position of the black squares matter? what i mean by that is can you reflect the position of the black square to the other side of the puzzle and it still work and be valid?
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of this game before until now, I guess Sudoku overshadowed it. This game is very similar to Sudoku, but I still prefer to play Sudoku in my opinion just because of the simple rule of Sudoku. The Kakuro puzzle seems more difficult to understand how it works than Sudoku but maybe if I play it a few times I could possibly understand it better. You've explained it thoroughly on an example of one board.
ReplyDeleteThis seemed as if this would be a very interesting game to try out. I am definitely interested to try this game after having read this post. I am intrigued by math puzzle and to have an essential idea of this game. Overall I had thought you did a great job with this blog post because it is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe game sounds fairly easy when you explain and I thought it was a bit easier than Sudoku, but I was presented with a very difficult version of it when I went online to try it out and was blown away. Nice and clear explanation of the game though!! I wonder if it is as addictive as Sudoku too
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of this game before. Something I will have to try sometime. You did a great job summarizing the game.
ReplyDeleteI also had never heard of this puzzle before. After reading the summary and looking at the puzzle itself it sounds and looks a lot like a sudoku. This is something that we could have tried in this class. I also had raised the same question as someone else who commented, can the black squares be placed differently?I am going to have to try out one of these puzzles if I ever run into one.
ReplyDeleteI have also not heard of the Kakuro puzzle but it's interesting how it is a mind working puzzle. The way that it is described, I feel that the Kakuro puzzle is a little bit more complicated than Sudoku. Almost the same format, like numbers 1-9, blank spaces, and the strategy to complete the puzzles. Really great summary and topic.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard about this before and tried to play it online. Needless to say, I had no idea what I was doing. The logic behind the game makes sense but the application of it is very difficult. Thanks to you, I'm probably going to spend a lot of my free time trying to figure this out. Here's a link to the game though if anyone is interested: http://www.kakuroconquest.com/
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of the puzzle also. I liked how you compared it to a Sudoku and explained how to play the game. I thought this sounds like a interesting puzzle to play and seems similar to Sudoko.
ReplyDeleteWow I never heard of this game but it seemed very interesting to play. I think I might try to play this game since you compared it to Sudoku. I also think that this summary of this puzzle was very good because you did a good job of explaining it.
ReplyDeleteThe idea behind the Kakuro puzzle is really interesting, but I think that I would prefer the Sudoku. Even though I would prefer the Sudoku, I do not mean that I would not like to try the Kakuro puzzle. Even though the games are somewhat similar, the Kakuro interests me because it brings something new to the table. Thank you for introducing this game to me, because of your blog post I will now be researching and possibly playing this game.
ReplyDelete