You already know Killer Sudoku. The cages, the clues, the satisfying combination of numbers and logic. What you probably don’t know yet is how much better it can be because until today, nobody had done Killer Sudoku properly.
Introducing Properly Killer Sudoku – Killer Sudoku done right. Properly clear, properly graded, properly killer. Click here to get it on Amazon.
Keep reading if you want to know exactly what we changed, and why you’ll notice the difference from the first cage you solve.
Killer Sudoku’s cages define the game. Traditionally, they’re marked with a thin dashed line, and traditionally that line is the first thing to disappear the moment your eyes are tired or the grid starts to fill with notes and numbers.
So we replaced it. Now every cage gets a subtle tint, with neighbouring cages always shaded differently so that each one stands out at a glance. It’s the difference between finding a cage and just seeing it. You’ll spend less brainpower figuring out boundaries, leaving you more for actually solving.
Once you’ve tried a shaded grid, going back to the old way feels like playing with one eye closed.
We kept the borders too, but we made them dotted and pushed them out slightly to leave more room for your all important candidate numbers.
And then there are the clue numbers – the cage target totals – unique to Killer Sudoku. They should be readable without crowding out your notes. We tested more clue number weights and sizes than we’d like to admit before landing on the balance in this book: clear enough to read at a glance, small enough to stay out of your way. We play these puzzles ourselves, every day. This is the grid we wanted.
Has this ever happened to you: you sit down with a “Hard” puzzle and finish it in five minutes flat? Or perhaps an “Easy” grid that suddenly demands a technique you’ve never needed before?
It happens because most grading systems only measure the probability of a puzzle being a given difficulty, not what it actually takes to solve it.
For Properly Killer Sudoku we created a brand-new difficulty grading system. It takes into account all the techniques a given puzzle actually requires, plus how quickly you can start filling in the easy wins. Then, because we’re the kind of people who do this for fun anyway, we play-tested our puzzles by hand to calibrate and validate the grades. The result? When this book tells you a puzzle is “Hard”, it really is hard! You'll know exactly what you’re walking into before you write down a single digit. Oh, and every puzzle is solvable by logic alone, and has only one valid solution because that’s how it should be.
Having built what we think is the best Killer Sudoku grid out there, squeezing it down to fit eight to a page was never on the table, even though that’s what most publishers do because they care more about profits than puzzles.
Properly Killer Sudoku gives you two puzzles per page, each grid a full 110mm (4.3”) square. That means there’s plenty of room for your workings both on and off the grid. 300 puzzles in total, sorted into Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme, each carrying its own difficulty score, so the book keeps up with you as you improve.
You’ll also find our popular Cheat Sheet printed right inside for screen-free quick reference, plus a solving guide, and full solutions to check yours against.
Clearer grids. Grading you can trust. Room to actually think. That’s Properly Killer Sudoku, and it’s available right now.