The other day, my friend was filling in a book with numbers. I looked at the page, and it kind of looked like a crossword puzzle with numbers. I was sure it wasn't the well-known Sudoku, the puzzle that is all over the place - in Newspapers, on websites, in competitions, and even conventions! I asked him what it was, and he said that it was another math puzzle called 'Kakuro'!
Before I tell you what Kakuro is, I'm going to tell you how to do Sudoku. Sudoku puzzles have 9 boxes that consist of 9 smaller boxes. They are all aligned to make one big square. While filling in a Sudoku puzzle, you have to keep in mind that there are 9 lines of boxes vertically, and 9 lines of boxes horizontally. You can only use one of the digits 1-9 once for each line, and only once for each box. A lot of 9's right? I bet you all already know how to Sudoku, so I will not go into depth. If you would like to do a sudoku, check it out in the Whyville Times Entertainment section.
Kakuro is another Japanese math puzzle. Some Whyvillians may know of it because of it's being in 'The Guardian' newspaper in England. It is also sometimes called Kakro or cross sums.
A Kakuro consists of some filled and empty cells, similar to the crossword puzzle. The 'playing field' can be any size, as long as it is symmetrical. This game is the equivalent to the crossword puzzle, except it is numerical. Some black cells have a diagonal slash that goes from top left to bottom right with numbers in them, which are called "The Clues". A number in the top right corner relates to an across clue, and the one on the bottom left, a down clue.
Your objective when you do a Kakuro puzzle is to insert digits from 1-9 into the white cells, to total the clue that is associated with it, but no digit can be duplicated in an entry. An example- for the total 6, you could have 1 and 5, 2 and 4, but you can not have 3 & 3. Why? Because that is using 3 more than once, or duplicating it. This game is killer, but it can be very confusing before you get it!
I myself am pretty bad at it, but if you would like to try some, and probably get better instructions than I could type, go to http://www.kakuro.com. or http://www.kakuro.net
And if this article gets accepted, don't miss my next possible one on - ADDOKU!
