Friday, December 09, 2005

A working killer sudoku solver!


Teostress mentions a killer sudoku solver previously unknown to me. Three strikes against it: it's in Java, it's in Spanish, and it's in Beta. But it does work -- on Firefox, at least. (I had troubles using it on Explorer.) Yay!

Here is my (highly improved) translation of the instructions:

"Right-click the squares that make up each of the Killer Sudoku's groups. (You can only click a black "0", not a grey one.) When you click on a square, an "Abrir Grupo" (Open Group) menu will ask you for two pieces of data: (1) the number of squares that make up the group, and (2) the sum total of the squares in that group. To add a neighboring square to the open group, right-click on the square and select "Anadir al Grupo" (Add to Group). When you run out of squares to add to the group, the solver will put you in a new spot to open a new group. Once you've taken care of all 81 squares, press "Resuelve" (Solve). Solving a killer sudoku takes more time than a normal Sudoku, but only by a matter of seconds. On a Pentium II 300 Mhz, this applet solved a killer sudoku in 40 seconds."

It takes FOREVER to fill in. Don't make a mistake, either, because if you do, you will have to erase everything and do it all over. (And it's pretty easy to make mistakes because you want to put in the total first, not the number of squares!) But it solved my samunamupure in less than 2 seconds!

One thing I've learned: do samunamupures that have answer keys available. Because using these solvers is a pain in the butt.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Daniel,
I have tried right now the solver:

http://www.sudoku.org.es/sudokukiller/resolverSudokuKiller.html

and it works!

I mean, it's java and you must have a browser, not Internet Explorer ;-), I tried it with Safari and Firefox, put the numbers and cells and... voila', he solved my Killer in very few time (it was an easy one... ;-)).

I have 'documented' all this with a lot of screenshot, if you want I can give them to you as a little guide on how to use the solver...

Teostress

5:15 AM  
Blogger Daniel S. said...

Dear Teostress:

You are indeed correct -- I was able to make it work. And I wrote up the "real" instructions.

1:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Daniel, I tested another solver... it's we time, so I have more time.. ;-)

the address is

http://homepage3.nifty.com/funahashi/game/game676eng.html

I solved my first weekly Killer in it, and the solution was correct.

What's more, the identification of the cages is simplier than the spanish one, and there are more features like:
- level identification (my one was easy);
- solution step-by-step.

Enjoy!

10:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The site www.sudoku.org.es has been translated (more or less) to English.

3:09 PM  

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