I'm hopeless at kakuros.I gave up trying to follow the discussion on the last one because the explanations didn't make any sense to me.
Posted 12th Feb 2019 at 13:16 Last edited by gareth 12th Feb 2019 at 13:18
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
The best way to learn to solve kakuro is to tick 'Show current clue fits' on the right-hand side of the player. You can then use this to step through the options for each clue, fit by fit.
More generally, start by finding a clue with just one fit, and mark the options in using the pencilmark ability. Now look for crossing clues which are also restricted, and see if they force a number. On the easiest puzzles, this is all you need to do, working back and forth. (But you probably know that already)
What makes some puzzles tougher is that you don't just need to consider which numbers can fit, but also where. This means you need to look at the pencilmarks you have made from the crossing clues, and then see if you can still fit an option in - since if you need both a 3 and a 5, say, but they only both occur in a single square, then clearly that option no longer fits. Sometimes you will notice that a subset of numbers from the answer can be placed (for example if there are two options, and both contain a 3, and there is only one place a 3 can be placed while still making the rest of either option possible).
And that - plus normal sudoku deductions in terms of naked pairs, triples and quads - is really all you need to do to solve kakuro. If you keep the pencilmarks up to date, you won't ever need to consciously think about how the clues intersect - you can do this via the intermediate step of the pencilmarks.
Of course, once you get good at the puzzles, you will need fewer and fewer pencilmark notes to help you along.
Hi Gareth, thank you for the advice. I tend to do the puzzles on my tablet and no aids, except pencil marks, seem to be available. Next time a kakuro comes up I'll try it on the laptop. Penny
Posted 13th Feb 2019 at 18:10 Last edited by gareth 13th Feb 2019 at 18:11
gareth Administrator Daily subscriber Has started but not yet finished this puzzle
Ah, yes. I never intended to leave the aids disabled on the tablet player - they would work just fine, if there was a UI button to access them! I just never got round to adding them.
The kakuro player dates to summer 2005, so it is now 14 years old - that probably makes it the longest online website that hasn't been changed in any way, other than adding some number keys for touch usage a few years ago. Puzzlemix launched in 2007, and has had some small evolutions since, but the kakuro player is still the one from dokakuro.com, unaltered all these years. It was way ahead of its time, clearly! :) But conversely, it is quite fiddly to update now and I would like to find the time to rewrite all the players for more flexibility. It has a ton of code to support the idiosyncrasies of Internet Explorer 5, which dates to 1998! That means it supports computers that are 20 years old. Not a lot of websites can say that. But then nor should they need to. (Actually, I made a few changes a few years ago to the save code so it won't actually fully work on IE 5 anymore, but they are trivial to undo; also, the site is now fully encrypted and old browsers can't handle the security protocols needed).
I don't really have a point here. Just musing on how it would be good to update the players now!
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Rating scores out of 10.0 show the average difficulty rating chosen by users, where 1.0 is "Easy" and 10.0 is "Hard".
If a puzzle is opened more than once, including by loading from a saved position, then this is potentially a significant aid so it is listed as being completed with 'multiple sessions' for the purpose of the best time/average rating displays above.
Minor aid is defined as no more than one use of 'Check solution' when incomplete and/or no more than one use of 'Check solution' when wrong; and/or using highlighting aids (show repeated digits, show broken inequalities and show valid/invalid placements [slitherlink] only). Major aid is any and all other use of the solving aids except for 'show wrong'.
Last edited by Elisabeth 12th Feb 2019 at 09:41
Later: Easier!
Last edited by gareth 12th Feb 2019 at 13:18
More generally, start by finding a clue with just one fit, and mark the options in using the pencilmark ability. Now look for crossing clues which are also restricted, and see if they force a number. On the easiest puzzles, this is all you need to do, working back and forth. (But you probably know that already)
What makes some puzzles tougher is that you don't just need to consider which numbers can fit, but also where. This means you need to look at the pencilmarks you have made from the crossing clues, and then see if you can still fit an option in - since if you need both a 3 and a 5, say, but they only both occur in a single square, then clearly that option no longer fits. Sometimes you will notice that a subset of numbers from the answer can be placed (for example if there are two options, and both contain a 3, and there is only one place a 3 can be placed while still making the rest of either option possible).
And that - plus normal sudoku deductions in terms of naked pairs, triples and quads - is really all you need to do to solve kakuro. If you keep the pencilmarks up to date, you won't ever need to consciously think about how the clues intersect - you can do this via the intermediate step of the pencilmarks.
Of course, once you get good at the puzzles, you will need fewer and fewer pencilmark notes to help you along.
Gareth, puzzlemix
thank you for the advice. I tend to do the puzzles on my tablet and no aids, except pencil marks, seem to be available. Next time a kakuro comes up I'll try it on the laptop. Penny
Last edited by gareth 13th Feb 2019 at 18:11
The kakuro player dates to summer 2005, so it is now 14 years old - that probably makes it the longest online website that hasn't been changed in any way, other than adding some number keys for touch usage a few years ago. Puzzlemix launched in 2007, and has had some small evolutions since, but the kakuro player is still the one from dokakuro.com, unaltered all these years. It was way ahead of its time, clearly! :) But conversely, it is quite fiddly to update now and I would like to find the time to rewrite all the players for more flexibility. It has a ton of code to support the idiosyncrasies of Internet Explorer 5, which dates to 1998! That means it supports computers that are 20 years old. Not a lot of websites can say that. But then nor should they need to. (Actually, I made a few changes a few years ago to the save code so it won't actually fully work on IE 5 anymore, but they are trivial to undo; also, the site is now fully encrypted and old browsers can't handle the security protocols needed).
I don't really have a point here. Just musing on how it would be good to update the players now!
Gareth
You can however view other players' statistics and comments in the tables above.