Customer Reviews

Kakuro For Dummies

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a straightforward book: a short chapter on how to play Kakuro, and 240 puzzles to solve. The introduction gives a nice overview of how Kakuro works, and the basic steps to take in solving a puzzle.

Unfortunately, there is a large disparity between the skills the intro gives you, and the skills needed to complete the puzzles that make up the rest of the book. This gap is about the size of the Grand Canyon - I have attempted dozens of the "easy" puzzles in /Kakuro For Dummies/, and I have only solved 4. Only 2 of those were without looking in the solutions to find out where I had messed up part-way.

I'm fairly certain I am not a moron - I can solve many Kakuro puzzles from other sources. I'm not great at it, but I can do it. As a "For Dummies" book, I find this one very disappointing. All it will do is discourage you from a very enjoyable puzzle game.

I really, really wanted to give this book a favorable review, but I just cannot. Even the easiest puzzles early in the book can be downright perplexing, and some of them are simply unsolvable given the very basic guide at the start. To put it simply, you *cannot* solve the majority of the puzzles in this book using *only* this book.

Note to the "Dummies" publishers for a future revision:

* Include much easier puzzles to start! The majority of the so-called "easy" puzzles are impossible to solve with the meager understanding this book offers.
* Add a section with more advanced techniques for solving larger, harder puzzles.

Bottom line: If you already know how to do Kakuro and want a huge selection of challenging puzzles, buy this book. If you are just starting out, look elsewhere unless you are looking for massive frustration.

This should be titled, "Kakuro to make you feel like a dummy!" The "easy" ones are harder than the "Beware! Very Challenging" puzzles in the Will Shortz book. The puzzles are so small that I had to rip out the pages and enlarge them on a copier so I had room to work and didn't go blind. Almost any other book has to be better than this one.

I bought this book for my dad since he enjoys sudoku so much and I thought he would like it. However, we (together) were unable to work through several of the easiest puzzles in the book. This would be a great book for someone really up for a kakuro challenge but AWFUL for a beginner. I can work really difficult puzzles from other sources and, no lie, I could not work through several of the easy puzzles. It will turn any beginner off to kakuro. This is certainly no book for dummies. It should be titled: "Kakuro for Geniuses"

I wanted this for Christmas because I enjoy Sudoko and can do some pretty hard puzzles in that arena. They get boring so I thought I'd try out some math related puzzle. "Kakuro for Dummies" lets you do a couple you can figure out and goes straight to the hard ones that say they're easy. It took me 3 attempts to get into the book just to figure out the basic scratch and deduct method. I haven't even tried to go get another book; one with pages of easy puzzles. I think I'll just go get work books with algebra problems to solve.

The book is way to hard for a "dummy" series. The complexity of the easy puzzles are way over the top. Not good for beginners because they will only get frustrated and abandon kakuro thinking they can't do it. The instructional section includes a table of "known combinations" for reference which is incomplete and lacking for puzzles this hard.
I brought the book because I have just started doing the daily sudoku and kakuro puzzles in my local paper a few months ago and was struggling with the kakuro. I figured a " dummy" book would bring me up to speed, but was shocked to find out the "easy" puzzles were harder than the ones in my local paper. The tutorial did an abysmal job of preparation for the challenges presented in this collection of puzzles. Overall the book fails miserably in the goal of helping a novice improve his skill set. I'll throw this book in the drawer and return to it after I have had a couple more years of experence with kakuro.

In my opinion, an "easy" puzzle should be solvable in one lunch hour and without piles of scrap paper. And I agree with my friend Penny that a satisfying puzzle, of any difficulty level, should be solved mostly through deduction, not by blind trial-and-error.

I am up to puzzle 57. The first twenty-five or so fit my definition of "easy" but then the book falls off a cliff. I have been unable to complete fifteen of the next 30 puzzles despite many hours of work and frequent peeking at the solution to keep on track. This is no way to have fun.

I thought the "dummies" title was just marketing, but this book is out to make the customer feel like one. I've been on a kakuro binge lately, and have enjoyed doing the moderately hard level puzzles in other books, but in this one, I couldn't even do the easiest level.

Like many other people I came to Kakuro after learning suduko. This dummies book was the first Kakuro book I used. I found this book just fine. I am still a newbie to the puzzle but I don't find these puzzles anymore difficult then ones in other magazines or books. I also have a perodical type Kakuro book from Dell that has similarly difficult easy puzzles. The only reason why I didn't give this book 5 stars is that the Dell puzzle book has included number combinations so you don't have to guess from scratch how many different number combinations for 23 can fit in a seven box space. All in all not a bad book to start with and like any of the dummies books it only provides one way of doing things and there are many different ways out there.