Customer Reviews

Square Wisdom: 200 Kendoku Puzzles

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

 

 

Even more math emphasis than Killer Sudoku, employing multiplication, division and subtraction. Sound challenging? Fortunately, he starts out with easy versions using only the numbers one through five.

Overall, I miss the use of three by three cells here and still occasionally get tripped up by the use of the same number twice within a cell. But they are engaging and a nice change of pace from Killer Sudoku.

DJAPE's puzzles have more variety than the KenKen's cranked out by the thousands by Will Shortz.

1) Much greater variety in the size and shape of the cages. Most KenKen stick to cages of mostly 2 and 3 cells. This makes a big difference in the experience of solving and makes the puzzles unique. Short's KenKen can be monotonously the same.

2) Use of subtraction and division for cages of 3 or more cells is allowed. Again, greater variety is allowed by ignoring KenKen's arbitrary self-imposed limitation.

3) Many puzzles have the few or no operators given. This makes an easy puzzle hard and a hard puzzle harder -- and even when it doesn't, it makes you feel as if you're cleverer than you really are! And again, this adds to the variety.

4) More sizes than the typical Shortz KenKen book does. Often Shortz books are ALL 6x6, or worse, 4x4 + 6x6.

5) DJAPE is a legitimate expert in the field of Sudoku and Sudoku variants, having run a website for years, created several pieces of software and 1000's of puzzles. Will Shortz knows *nothing* about number puzzles; his expertise is in *word* puzzles. Cripes -- he calls Sudoku "wordless crossword puzzles".

6) Other than buying this book and enjoying the puzzles from his website, I have no connection to DJAPE. I do not even know who she or he is.

This is a nice value for the puzzles. Not as compact as some, so more for home vs. travel.

I am only 20% through the book. I have finished several Ken-Ken books; this book is harder--which is what I wanted. I've switched from pen to pencil, since my 'solution' rate is only about 50%. This way, I can take another run at my failures.

I recommend this book for folks who want a little more challenge than Ken-Ken.

I really like Kendoku or KenKen puzzles and this book has a huge variety. However they are very difficult except for the first few. The book is a great challenge but be prepared to spend a lot of time on even some of the easier puzzles. You also need to keep checking your answers because a single mistake will wreck everything and it will almost never be discovered until you are almost done and then it is too late to fix anything. Simple example of the challenge here: 18x (in 3 squares)could be 1x2x9 or 3x3x2 or 1x3x6 - if it is in 4 sqaures there are then so many more combinations.