I have had a number of people request that I produce some 6 by 6 variation puzzles, as a counterpart to the 12 by 12 “Su Dozen” puzzles I used to publish each Sunday. These are good sudoku for beginners and younger puzzle fans.
At this level of sudoku, the number of clues really does determine the difficulty level of the puzzle, so I have divided the sudoku up by the number of clues. Each sheet has 6 puzzles (which is nice and symmetric with the 6 by 6 cells of each puzzle). The goal is the same as any sudoku – arrange the numbers so that each appears just once in each row, in each column, and in each (2 by 3) box. Also, enjoy them!
20 clue puzzles
16 clue puzzles
Want to extend your usage of these puzzles?
Karen Deal Robinson sent along this description of how to use chess pieces to represent the numbers:
“I thought you might enjoy knowing that I printed up your 12-clue 6x6 puzzles and use them for a board game I play with chess pieces. I use three chess sets to get six each of the king, queen, bishop, knight, rook and pawn, which I use to represent the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6. I use a regular chess board with the 2x3 sections arranged as in this photo.”
“The photo represents my solution to your first puzzle on sheet one of your 12-clue puzzles. By playing this way, I can re-use your puzzles, since by the time I've solved them all I will have forgotten the solutions.”
“Ever since I first encountered sudoku, I thought it would be fun to use chess pieces to represent the numbers, but I wasn't able to figure out how to do it with 9x9 puzzles. The 6x6 puzzles work great. When I have a piece that I know must go in one of two adjacent squares, I place it halfway between them until I figure out which one it goes in.”
Thanks for sharing that, Karen!