Michael Harvey
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Download our latest Sudoku Special
Word games or logic puzzles - which do you prefer? When The Times unleashed the Sudoku tsunami in 2004, there were cries of outrage from keen crossword fans that their beloved pastime was being swamped. There were dire predictions that Sudoku would kick cryptic clues off the puzzle pages of our newspapers.

Of course it did not happen. What Sudoku did was pull in a whole new tranche of people who previously had not done puzzles regularly before. The puzzle market in general has expanded hugely - just ask the happy people who produce the blizzard of magazines and books that still fill up the shelves in W H Smith. So crosswords and other word puzzles like times2's Polygon (my personal favourite but then I am biased) have continued to annoy and entertain readers in the millions. From time to time I still receive letters from crossword fans pleading for the logic puzzle craze to end but here at The Times I believe the two sets of puzzlers can co-exist. And there are, of course, many people who enjoy doing both sorts of puzzles.
So here we present two new puzzles to The Times. Pathfinder is a wordsearch with a general knowledge twist and Masyu (the Japanese for Pearls) is a logic puzzle in the Sudoku mould. Originated in Japan by Nikoli, Masyu is more of a visual puzzle and so perhaps less scary to those who are put off by Sudoku's numerals. It was recommended to me by some of the best Sudoku players at the recent Sudoku World Championships in Prague for its logical purity.
The next question: is Masyu The Successor? There has been much coverage recently in other publications about the search for a puzzle that will take the world by storm like Sudoku.
Certainly Sudoku's unique combination of pleasing visual appearance, simplicity of rules and addictive levels of difficulty makes it a very hard act to follow. I know this because, like many others in this line of work, I have been scouring the planet for such a successor. So what do you think of Masyu and, if times2 was to introduce another puzzle, should it be Masyu, another logic puzzle or another word game? Let me know what you think. E-mail puzzles@thetimes.co.uk
The Sudoku puzzle appears daily and the solution on the following day. Each week, Monday's puzzle will be the easiest, progressing to the most difficult on Friday. We will save the truly impossible puzzles for Bank Holiday weekends. Good luck!
To solve a Sudoku puzzle, every digit from 1 to 9 must appear in each of the nine vertical columns, in each of the nine horizontal rows, and in each of the nine boxes. They range in difficulty from easy to very hard, depending on the positioning of the numbers you're given to start with.
To ensure grids print out on one sheet of paper, place cursor over image, right click for options window, select "print"
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I just got back from holiday and was disappointed to find that the Super Fiendish puzzles I had missed in July are no longer available on-line. There used to be a long history (possibly complete) of past Sudoku puzzles but now the history seems only to go back a week or so. How can I get July's SF?
Su D'Xpo, Belmont, USA
What are your tips for a beginner at sudoku ? so far the easiest grid takes over 30 minutes Help!
Robert, Eltham, Uk
To print usable copies:
1. In Adobe Reader, zoom in to the puzzle or two you want (trying to capture more doesn't give a decent print quality).
2. Use the Snapshot tool to select your puzzles: this copies them to your computer's clipboard.
3. Paste the content of the clipboard into any application that will take it. I use Paint Shop Pro, but you can use Word or Powerpoint - lmost anything really
4. Print. Nice, clear copies.
Ian Richardson, Epping, UK
Why is the degree of difficulty missing from the download files for some days but not others.Am I missing something.
John Meakin, Northallerton, UK
10th Jun ) 07 Really annoyed today (1369) Have solved it only to find it impossible to distinguish which are squares to enter challenge since print on my copy of the newspaper is so poor that "highlighted" squares are, to my ageing eyes indistinguishable from others! Cannot find a copy of 1369 on your website (which appears to be ages out of date!) and it is now Sunday so our newsagent has not got a copy left of Saturday's paper! No telephone Help available and so total waste of time. Please codify the sudoku squares (eg A1, C6) etc and print the required squares with the puzzles.
Bob Talbot, Kettins, Perthshire
Why are 28 and 29 May Sudoku hidden under Planet Sudoku Special and not on the main page. Took me an age to find - Thought I'd print out the Planet Special but realised that it would be invisible once printed on a A4 sized paper - how to get around this? And please put the daily downloads where we can find them easily!!
Jan, Bristol, UK
Could you improve the quality of the graphics on yopur killer soduku. It is often difficult to tell the 6's and 8's apart. The Guardian's killer has much better quality of graphics.
David Murray, Greenford, UK
Some days there is no time target on the killer.
Why is this?
steve, cambridge,
Can you set up site so you can count the downloads and thus see whether the easy ones are less popular.
If they are you could then concentrate on more difficult categories.
steve, cambridge,
If you do killers you are not normally interested in ordinary sudoku.
Please split the puzzles so we can just download them individually rather than having to have all three and lose chance to print bigger.
Thanks
steve, cambridge,
How about putting the puzzles on A4 size paper? I doubt many of us have printer that cope with 21.63 x 13.5 inch paper. Or is that the point?
Hugh Tonks, Cambridge, UK
I love both. Why should it be a "either /or " Option?
sudha, Pune, India
I agree with Hilary. When printing and enlarding Killer 's quite often the small numbers become blurred and eights, sixes, fives and nines become difficult to tell apart.
Rob Gaveston, Sydney, Australia
Please could we have the Sudokus in MUCH larger type? Or at least an option to double the size? Some of us have eyes that have seen better days!
Hilary Robinson, Crewe, UK
The wife and I like to start the day with the Killer and Sudoku from the Times, just as some 30 years ago we would start the day with the Grauniad Crossword. Because we live in Oz, we get these puzzles off the web, so we are always a couple of days behind the times ... but we are very much behind the Times in their generous provision of the best possible way to start the day.
John Baker, Gold Coast, Australia, QLD 4210
How do I print this off in a readable size?
confused, Camberley,