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[Carlos del Vaca]

Bring it!
http://www.sudokucombat.com

[KeithHernandez]

But, unfortunately for you, you play Sudoku.

[linnea]

Holy shit! A lot of my posts have begun with that in a vain attempt to capture my genuine emotion. Better vocabulary next time, I promise. Anyway, I think that I have discovered a new raison d'être -- Playing sudoku. Extra points if a delicious beverage is being enjoyed whilst playing said puzzle. Damn, finally something to break my flagging FreeCell addiction. I love this stuff. Rubik's cube of the '00s, indeed.

[theinevitable]

linnea, I am not even thinking about marrying you any more.

[linnea]

Whoa! A faddish game of logic is that much of a buzzkill, eh?

[AugustWest]

Oh yeah?  Well I'll kick your ass at crossword puzzles.  Or Trivial Pursuit.

[linnea]

Oh yeah?  Well I'll kick your ass at crossword puzzles.  Or Trivial Pursuit.

Oh SHIT YES! God, I LOVE Trivial Pursuit. I rock the house at that game. However, I'd have to defer to our Jeopardy! champ.

[V-Adore]

Whoa! A faddish game of logic is that much of a buzzkill, eh?

Some people are very unhappy with it.

I personally don't really care about Sudoku; not my cuppa, but whatever gets you through the day. I prefer crossword puzzles, and one of these days I'd like to learn how to do cryptic crosswords. I think if I could just do cryptics that I would feel smart forever.

[AugustWest]

I think the difference between British and American crossword puzzles is cultural rather than intellectual.    Big Caveat -- I can't do cryptic crosswords.  I can kick ass on most regular (American?)  crosswords, though. 

I've noticed that there is a jargon, an argot, a cant (if you will) involved in crossword solving.  Certain words and phrases occur with a non-random regularity.  It doesn't take much cogitation to realize that words with useful letters are far more likely to appear, thus contributing to their statistical density.  Since cryptic crosswords are subject to the same linguistic limiting conditions as our homely puzzles, I'd guess that we'd also find a few useful words appearing more than would ordinarily be expected.

My point?  I've been doing crosswords for almost 30 years now.  I know the tricks of the trade.  I do not believe that the inhabitants of the British Isle are a statistical anomaly.  They aren't any smarter than the rest of us. 

So how can they do those confounded cryptics?  Easy.  They know the secret code.  They've been doing them all along, so they know the secrets.  Ask them for a three letter word for table scraps (O-T) or a famous Giant RF (O-T).  They'll be as baffled as we are when confronted with a clue like "Three legged shilling potato flowers". 

[KeithHernandez]

Speaking of crossword puzzles-- Yesterday, I was loading some friends band equipment into their cars after a set at a local bar.  A girl was outside, and asked me if I knew the answer to this crossword puzzle.  After being too drunk to hear the question (I had just got back from dollar beer night at a minor league baseball game, and this bar is like a block from my apt, so I always get pretty drunk when I go there) I said I only do crossword puzzles from the NY Times.  I guess she thought that was cute, because I got her number from only like 3 minutes of talking.  Either that, or she likes self destructive guys that she thinks may be in a post rock band (I don't really remember the conversation). 

I wish I could do crosswords though.  They seem like such fun, but I always just think they are to hard then go do a word search (that last bit is not actually true).

[CortJstr]

I never even tried a crossword puzzle until I have my first job in college. Then it was basically all we did (until Thursday, then they got too hard). I sucked at the beginning because I knew none of the tricks at all. Like 4 letter fencing weapon I thought was foil. How could I have been so ignorant?

Linnea, you need to check out Conceptis puzzles. I'm a big fan of the linking games because I can do them while watching TV. And since sudoku's popularity is waning a bit after over a year in the spotlight they also have the two puzzles trying to replace it, kakuro and battleship.

[V-Adore]

So how can they do those confounded cryptics?  Easy.  They know the secret code.  They've been doing them all along, so they know the secrets.  Ask them for a three letter word for table scraps (O-T) or a famous Giant RF (O-T).  They'll be as baffled as we are when confronted with a clue like "Three legged shilling potato flowers". 

This is probably true, but there seems to be no feasible way to break in and learn the code if you haven't been raised with it. I've never, ever seen a Cryptic Crossword For Beginners or a Super-Easy Cryptic Crosswords book, so how am I ever going to get the toolkit to do these fuckers? I figure the options are either stumble into being initiated into some kind of secret British puzzling society, at which point I will receive training in their eldritch techniques, or undergo a neurological incident that gives me some sort of ghostly insight into the cryptic. Neither of these seem terribly likely.

[smick]

I used to really like Sudoku, so then I wrote an application in C++ for the playing of Sudoku.

That was the last time I ever played it.  I think it basically killed any enjoyment dead.  It was revealed to me that it was *****ic and procedural.

Writing the program was fun.

[linnea]

I'm really glad that I didn't buy a copy of the game. I got a trial version and was entralled with it initially.

I played my first game of Sudoku in 9:05 minutes on Easy mode. Now I have it set to "Hard" mode and my average is 6:36 minutes per game.

I guess that the thrill is gone, after less than 24 hours! Maybe the pen and paper version will be more satisfying... OR maybe I should find a new game. I'm going to go with another new game, I think. I'll check out some of your suggestions.

[jough]

Yeah, I too wrote a little script to solve Sudoku puzzles.  Now the computer can solve them so I don't have to.