Kakuro has been my favorite puzzle for more than three years. Also known as "cross sums", it resembles more a crossword puzzle than its more popular cousin sudoku, only of course with numerals (a 1-9 range like sudoku) instead of letters filling in the boxes. But I find that kakuro exercises my logical faculties more than sudoku, and I have gotten quite good at it with my focus on the more difficult puzzles found in books like Mensa Kakuro, Black Belt Kakuro, and Kakuro Challenge.
Just three books with tough kakuro games. When I am in a large bookstore like Barnes and Nobles or the soon-to-be-defunct Borders, I see shelf after shelf of sudoku puzzles but only a handful of kakuro books. Why? Is there something wrong with kakuro that makes people want to avoid it? Or maybe there is only a relatively small, finite number of puzzles that can be constructed...
Ha, that last notion is ridiculous, so it must be that people either find kakuro to be too easy, too difficult, or just plain boring. Or maybe it's similar to indie/alternative music not being played on broadcast radio: the corporate-powers-that-be just don't see its potential popularity and simply won't promote it.
All I really know is that now I have exhausted all of the available books providing more advanced-level kakuro puzzles. Now I have to wait for each Thursday when my newspaper Gainesville Sun publishes their excellent, albeit small, kakuro puzzle. Not enough!
By the way, my blog spell-check recognizes "sudoku" as a word but not "kakuro". Corporate power Google. There you go.
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I would like to recommend to try this challenging kakuro game.
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