First of all, I posted a Killer X puzzle rated THINKER for today. I would like to know how difficult you find this one.
Regarding the INSANE puzzle posted on Friday – I see that there has been a lot of discussion regarding it’s difficulty and the difficulty of some other puzzles posted last week. At the moment I’m rating puzzles depending on the number of different solving techniques that must be used, their relative difficulty (cage splitting is rated most difficult) and the number of times you must use each technique to solve the puzzle. For instance, the EASY puzzle posted on October 27 required only “innies/outies” and basic classic Sudoku techniques. Now, some “innies” are sometimes difficult to spot at a first glance, but it’s a basic technique which experienced solvers should’ve mastered by now. On the other hand, in addition to “innies/outies” the INSANE required cage splitting and some advanced Sudoku techniques (match/hidden subsets). I will have another look at rating puzzle difficulties and see if I can improve it. Perhaps I should rate “cage sums” more difficult for big cages (applying different combinations of possible cage sums).
Whatever the difficulty, I hope you are enjoying solving the puzzles. Difficulty is a somewhat personal issue – it depends a lot on which techniques you’ve mastered and which ones you’re still learning.
We’re still doing fine on the Top 50 Sudoku list. And we’re still the only site there posting daily Killer Sudokus (a couple of sites that claim they have Killers are actually just linking to us).
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