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mathj2001
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun 13 Jan, 2019 4:12 pm

Hello

Post by mathj2001 »

Hello.

I'm Matt and I've enjoyed logic puzzles for many years.

I first became interested in Sudoku and was in the final of the 2005 Times UK Sudoku competition in 2005. the next competition I took part in was the 2019 online UK Puzzle Championship! In between times I have enjoyed the variety of logic puzzles now on offer either online or in print form. I particularly enjoyed subscribing to 'Tough Puzzles'. Is there another magazine which replicates this? Beyond Sudoku is ok, but I would like more variety and challenge.
Puzzle_Maestro
Posts: 124
Joined: Mon 11 Mar, 2019 5:23 pm

Re: Hello

Post by Puzzle_Maestro »

Welcome!

Off the top of my head, I can think of Nikoli and Toketa. Both are excellent, and I would highly recommend them.

There is also a huge amount of puzzle material on the web if you are willing to do a bit of searching. Obviously there is https://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/ but there are also other blogs such as https://mellowmelon.wordpress.com/, http://puzzleparasite.blogspot.com/?m=0, https://tcollyer.blogspot.com/?m=0, etc.
mathj2001
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun 13 Jan, 2019 4:12 pm

Re: Hello

Post by mathj2001 »

That's great, thank you. I'll gladly look at more recommendations.
nickdeller
Posts: 606
Joined: Tue 29 Jun, 2010 11:41 am

Re: Hello

Post by nickdeller »

Hi Matt!

Former editor of Tough Puzzles here, and I miss it too! :-) Every so often I do have a conversation with Puzzler Media and they've never said never to a relaunch, but it never really makes it to the top of the priority list - understandable enough, as it's an awful lot of work to serve a fairly small niche market and I think it always struggled to be profitable.

From the point of view of putting something like that together, the more I look at Beyond Sudoku the more I think that it's not actually missing very much that I'd have been keen to include, although the likes of Numbering Knights/Knight's Tour were iconic and I've not seen anything similar anywhere else. Out of interest, are there specific puzzle types from the TP days that you'd particularly like to track down as new material?
Nilz
Posts: 358
Joined: Fri 02 Sep, 2011 5:21 pm

Re: Hello

Post by Nilz »

I subscribed to Tough Puzzles for a year when I was 14. Couldn't solve most of the puzzles, but I enjoyed seeing a variety of new puzzle types. In particular, I think it was my first introduction to Cross Sums (similar to Kakuro).
Since Nick asked, I'll chime in to say my favourite puzzles were generally the smaller logic and maths-based puzzles (probably no surprise)- things like Numbercrostic, Skeleton Sums, Treasure Hunt and A Baker's Dozen. Despite being word puzzles, I also liked Trios (a paragraph has been divided into groups of 3 letters, those groups are then placed into alphabetical order, and all you're given are the lengths of each word in the original). And I also liked those quick puzzles at the end where you had to take 3 consecutive letters out of a given sequence of words in order to spell a film (or TV show etc).
I don't think I ever successfully solved a Numbering Knights or Exhange Rates puzzle. And I never got too far with the Scrowdros, Numerical Crossword, or Think-Tank puzzles either. :oops:

I'm not a particular fan of Beyond Sudoku, although it is probably the best currently available in this country. It has too few puzzles of each type for my liking, especially because the first 1 or 2 are always pretty easy. The German equivalent is MUCH better: https://www.kuengverlag.ch/logikraetsel/#mixlogik (and past issues are available on Amazon). Having said that, both Beyond Sudoku and Mix Logik do have a few too many picture puzzles for my liking.

Sorry for hijacking the thread. Welcome to Matt! :)
mathj2001
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun 13 Jan, 2019 4:12 pm

Re: Hello

Post by mathj2001 »

Thank you to the responses Nick and Neil. I just remember Tough Puzzles as having a particularly wide range of puzzles where most of them held challenge. I may give the German magazine a try. When I lived in Germany I remember them catering for new the newer types of logic puzzles. Hopefully this will improve my timings with competitions. At the moment, I'm a little baffled how Endo Ken can complete so many so quickly!
Feadoor
Posts: 291
Joined: Thu 17 May, 2018 7:08 am

Re: Hello

Post by Feadoor »

Don't worry, everyone else is baffled by that too.
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