Thanks to an entry in Simon Ritter’s blog, I now find myself completely addicted to a game which is as simple as it is catching: Sudoku. Its objective is to fill in a matrix with numbers, so that each row, column and submatrix contains only unique numbers (1 through 9). This is an example of a game in progress (from WikiPedia):

As you can see, the bottom left quadrant has already been filled with unique numbers. Trough logic and sheer cunning the player must complete the rest of the grid. Of course there are numerous computerized versions of the game available, and even some for my phone, which is great for playing on the train.

I have always liked simple games the most; when everyone else was playing Doom and Quake, I stuck obsessively to Tetris and Solitaire. In more recent times, I spent quite some time on games like Bejewelled and Zuma. And on my phone, I’m still not bored with One For All FreeCell. So I guess Sudoku is just the logical next step…

(I met Simon last August, when he came to Holland to do a workshop for our company’s “Java Summer Camp”, on Java 5. People are still talking about it. Fortunately they seem to have forgotten the mix-up that got Simon on the wrong train to our location. Our office manager Rietje and I had to race through the Dutch countryside to pick him up at the next train station. But all was well in the end, Simon delivered a truly inspiring presentation.)