Japanese Puzzles

Japanese Puzzles are taking over my life.

Sudoku

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

The day I left for Japan I bought a sudoku book. After a couple failed attempts at the ones in the newspaper, I decided to take it on and start easy. On the airplane, I figured it out and did a few puzzles. Soon I was mastering techniques and battling and winning against the more challenging. I even got a game for my Nintendo DS to play it on trains. I thought it would keep my brain sharp.

Nonograms
(aka Gridders, pict-o-puzzles, picross)

The object of the puzzle is to figure out which of the squares should be coloured in, and which should be left blank (or an X), based on the clues given for each column and row. The resulting pattern of light and dark squares then makes up a picture, which is the solution to the puzzle.

One day I decided I wanted to try something else. I saw these nonograms, stared at the instructions, but could not figure out how to do them. I read about how to do them on the internet and went out and bought a book. This proved very handy as I soon came down with the flu and spent my nights in bed filling in these little squares. I dreamed about the squares in my sick-induced night sweats. They have been my poison of choice for the past 1 or 2 months.

Slitherlink
(aka fences, loop the loop)

The objective is to connect horizontally and vertically adjacent dots so that the lines form a single loop with no loose ends. In addition, the number inside a square represents how many of its four sides are segments in the loop.

I had seen these kickin’ around in papers and puzzle books. As I had just gotten into nonograms, I wanted to exhaust that interest first before moving on to another puzzle. Yesterday I saw a Nintendo DS game for it. Brand new, but marked down from 2960yen to 980 yen (about $7.50ish). That’s a really good price so I bought it. I learned the basics last night and am ready to tackle more!

Sadly, once I am infected, the current puzzle virus is contracted by my boyfriend to feverous degrees. Who will be next?!

Oh no, while gathering this info, I found a new one called Bridges that looks pretty fun.