Last year Richard was running a Sudoku advent calendar, which had many high quality sudokus.

He has gone a step further this time, and has started a Sudoku Variants Series. More about that (and the first Sudoku - which incidentally is a Classic) can be found here.

My bet is that Richard can run it for at least 6-8 months, if he is posting daily :-). We will see.

Thanks Deb, for the attention to this project.

Recently I have been busy with puzzles for the German Sudoku Championship 2014 and another sudoku project. I noticed once more the incredible number of Sudoku variations and also that there are a lot of types unexplored by me. For this reason I started this ‘Sudoku Variants Series’. It is not my goal to make a full overview of possible types, because there are too many ‘slightly’ different variations. But I think it is interesting to make a fresh variant every week, so at the end the Series provide a very good insight in what the possibilities with Sudoku actually are.

Since I will continue publishing a normal ‘Friday-noon-puzzle’ too, I have decided to publish one sudoku variant per week (Tuesday noon). In that case I expect the project will run for a period of between two and three years. Maybe even longer, my list is growing daily at the moment. We’ll see.

I will keep you informed now and then about the progress of the Series.

If you have any suggestions, questions or complaints: don't hesitate to contact me, either in the forum or with a P.M.

Regards, Richard

Hi all,
Meanwhile the Series is running for almost three months, so it is time for an update. I have had an extremely busy period at work, so I was happy to keep the rhytm of placing a weekly sudoku, but I hardly had time to write something here, meaning this update contains links to the first 13 puzzles.

The puzzles are easy to medium in difficulty, although most of them have 1 or 2 stars for difficulty in the portal of LM Germany. The weighting system there is a bit out of control.
Me was asked if the puzzles could also be part of the Daily league of Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen, a facebook group that publishes a challenging sudoku variant every day. You can find that facebook group here. I was delighted that my puzzles can be part of this interesting project!

Here are the links to the first puzzles that I have put online since the start of my project:
000 Classic Sudoku
001 Odd Sudoku
002 No Touch
003 Search Nine Sudoku
004 Position Sudoku
005 Renban Sudoku
006 Consecutive Sudoku
007 Consecutive Circles (new variant)
008 Trio Sudoku
009 Next to Nine
010 Answer Eight
011 Diagonal Sudoku
012 Arrow Sudoku

If you haven't solved them yet: Have fun with these sudokus! There's much more to come.

Richard

Hi all,
It has been a while since the previous update.
So here I am again:

013 Palindrome
014 Symmetrical Unequal
015 Maximum Triplet
016 Extra Regions
017 No three odd/even in line
018 Odd Labyrinth
019 Sum 100
020 Even Sandwich
021 Maximin
022 Identical Blocks
023 Perfect Squares
024 Star Products
025 Odd/even Consecutive
026 Killer
027 Edge Sums
028 Windoku
029 Clone
030 1~9
031 Round off

Have fun with the puzzles! I would be happy if you enter the solutions at the website of LM Germany.

Hi all,
Time for a new update on the Series since it has been three months ago again.

032 Anti Diagonal
033 Little Killer
034 Magic Squares
035 Box Sums
036 Non Consecutive
037 X-Sums
038 Group Sums
039 Fortress
040 Mathrax
041 Thermometer
042 Mathdoku
043 Sudoku Low
044 Number 5 is alive

Enjoy the puzzles if you haven't tried them yet!

I started SVS in december last year, so the first year is already over. 52 different variants were published, and the end is not in sight. Not by a long shot. Players keep inventing new variants, so my list of possible puzzles has grown over the last year.

Here are the links to the most recent puzzles:
045 Quadruple
046 Anti Knight
047 Prime Killer
048 XV
049 OddMax
050 Bent Diagonals
051 Disjoint Groups
052 Rank Sudoku

Hi all,

Four years have gone by, and the Series is still running. Meanwhile, there must be a lot of new Sudoku Enthusiasts, and they may not be aware at all that this series is running.

Because of other puzzle activities, the weekly rhytm has been changed to a fortnightly rhytm. At the moment the series contain 246 different sudoku variants, and the end is still not in sight.
If you like to solve some sudoku puzzles during this holiday season, take a look here: Sudoku Variants Series

Happy new year to all puzzle friends!