SudokuSolver Forum

Am I the only one who has a particular penchant for symmetrical puzzles? Are they harder to generate than asymmetrical ones?

With my simple semi-manual-automatic method it is both harder and more time consuming. With a professional generator like Ruud's Gattai Maker it probably does not matter. When I have finished my Samurai Do-It-Yourself-Kit generator, I will make it public available; including source code and a rough user manual. I will try to generate a symmetric puzzle for next week, but how I do that I will keep to myself

Personally I do not understand why people have a penchant for symmetrical puzzles or puzzles where overlapping blocks are clueless. It has absolutely no relevance to the puzzle's difficulty or fun to solve. It is all purely cosmetic and psychological, i.e. the average Joe thinks that a puzzle where one or more blocks have no clues is more difficult than a puzzle were all blocks have clues.

The number of clues has to some extent also no influence over the difficulty of a sudoku. Take a look at http://www.fiendishsudoku.com. Every day they have five sudokus with the difficulty ratings Easy, Moderate, Hard, Evil and Fiendish. What so special is that each day all five sudokus have the exact same layout, or pattern if you prefer (and therefore also the exact same number of givens). Solely the values of the givens determine the difficulty of each sudoku.

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Cool! Thanks!


Pure aesthetics, I guess. I love patterns and order, always have. I maintain that's a key reason for my reading ability and math ability at a young age.


Now that I've never heard, nor do I understand why anyone would insist on this. I agree--it makes no difference in the difficulty of the puzzle.


And they have some really pretty patterns!

Incidentally, I find it difficult to believe that the puzzles on those sites (http://www.fiendishsudoku.com and its sister sites, http://www.extremesudoku.info and http://www.samurai-sudoku.com) are generated strictly by hand, especially ten standard sudoku (in ten different difficulty levels) and a samurai EVERY DAY. I think it more likely that the patterns are created by hand, and then the puzzles are computer-generated to fit the selected pattern.

How difficult do you want it?
And I will be asking for proof of solving, which is not easily obtained with a logical solver

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The most advanced technique in my repertoire right now is X-wings (I'm fine with naked and hidden singles, pairs, and triples, locked candidates, and usually naked/hidden quads). I'm still trying to get to where I can recognize a swordfish when I see one. Anything more difficult than that and I'm out of my league.


???

I could for instance make it Center-Dot and ask you to post the solution

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Ok, I think I understand. I'm game! Be advised, though, that it often takes me a while to get through a puzzle because some days I get very little (as in 15 minutes or less) time to work on it, or even none at all, so no short deadlines, please!

No problem, take all the time you need. Here is the deal:
I will try to generate a symmetrical Samurai for next week with Basic Fish being the most advanced technique required. Since I have not done this before I cannot actually promise that I will succeed, but I have some theories on how to do it. If I am able to make such a puzzle, I will first make you a second one when you have solved the first one!

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enxio27,

As you will see there is no symmetrical Samurai this week. I am sorry but I did not find the time, or to be honest the weather this weekend has been superb, so there were better things to do than sitting on front of a PC.

I have also prioritised coding on my general Do-It-Yourself-Kit gattai Generator, which has made big leaps ahead. The generation method still pretty much conforms to what I posted here: http://www.sudocue.net/forum/viewtopic. ... 6&start=45

For generating a 9x9 grid that requires Naked Singles only solving I currently use a program called QSudoku (which can generate a puzzle including pre-selected givens), but next weekend I will hopefully have my own generator for this that produces better and very evenly distributed clues. Then I will make a user manual and make the stuff public available.

The next step after that is to figure out how to generally deal with overlapping nonets and then I should by the push of a button and within seconds be able to generate a puzzle, which requires Naked Singles only solving for virtually any gattai construction. And by using an external solver of your preference, you will be able to successively make the puzzle harder and harder.

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Not a problem! I was out of town this past weekend, anyway. I'm not in any particular hurry. I certainly have plenty of puzzles to keep me busy in the mean time.


I'm not sure I follow this, but ok.