Sudoku

Okay, I finally gave in to the Sudoku craze and thought I'd try it out and see if I liked it. After all, there are Sudoku books plastered before your face in every store you enter, and everywhere I go, I overhear people talking about it. What finally made me gave in is the other day I was standing in line at AC Moore, and overheard a lady saying, "So and so plays that game, did you know?" The person she was speaking to replied, "No, I'll have to call her and see what strategies she uses!"

Ah, strategy. My downfall. I love strategy games, always have. I like a challenge. So when I got home, I went to Yahoo Games, and selected Sudoku. Read the rules, and got started on their beginning puzzle. Now I solved it quickly and easily, but I understood that was the beginner puzzle -- it's supposed to be easy. I'll try a medium one now and see if I can figure that out, thinketh I.

Now it's definitely a timetaker -- it takes a long time to fill in all those squares and start narrowing them all down and finally ending up with the solution. But it was just as easy as the first puzzle, in my opinion. I was never challenged, I never came to a point where I couldn't figure out what else could be done and I had to stop and think, I never got stuck. And the challenge is what I like about logic puzzles...

So I tried the hard level. Same thing. Took some time, but never got to a point where I had to think. This game is nuts, I thought! Who wants to spend an hour filling in little boxes when it's obvious once they're all filled in what needs to go where? And I quit.

Until the next day. Maybe yahoo just isn't hard enough, I thought. These games are everywhere! Books and books of them! There MUST be harder puzzles out there, that challenge you and really make you think, or people wouldn't keep doing them! So I searched the internet until I found a site with four levels -- easy, medium, hard, and EVIL. Ahhh, an EVIL puzzle -- right up my alley!

Now it was a little more challenging, in that there were a couple times I had to go down the columns or across the rows to look for a number that could be determined definitely instead of just glancing and filling as I did the other three puzzles. But I still came to a solution without a whole lot of brainwork. So I just don't get it. Why is this such a craze? Why so popular?

And don't get me wrong, I'm not just saying I'm too smart for these puzzles -- I know better! When I purchase logic puzzle books, I get stumped on some of the moderates, and you can just forget the difficult ones. When I play Paint by Numbers which is similar to the type of logic needed for Sudoku, I often get stuck for periods of time on the harder puzzles, and sometimes I'm so stumped I can't finish them. So it's not that I'm saying I'm smart -- I'm just saying Sudoku, at least the puzzle I tried, including the evil one, is too easy!!

If anyone reading this is a huge Sudoku fan, please let me in on what I'm missing. Are there truly challenging puzzles out there somewhere that I'm just missing? WHY are you hooked on Sudoku? Why would the person in the line at the store want to call someone to discuss strategies? I didn't even need to think up any strategies!! Please help clue me in! :o)