*** CACHE IS NOT AT
THE LISTED COORDINATES ***
HISTORY:
What has become known as the Sudoku puzzle was designed by
Howard Garns, a retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor,
and first published in 1979. Although likely inspired by the Latin
square invention of Leonhard Euler, Garns added a third dimension
to the mathematical construct and presented the creation as a
puzzle, providing a partially-completed grid and requiring the
solver to fill in the rest. The puzzle was first published in New
York by the specialist puzzle publisher Dell Magazines in its
magazine Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games, under the title
Number Place.
The puzzle was introduced in Japan by Nikoli in the paper
Monthly Nikolist in April 1984 as "Suuji wa dokushin ni
kagiru," which can be translated as "the numbers must be single" or
"the numbers must occur only once." The puzzle was named by Kaji
Maki, the president of Nikoli. At a later date, the name was
abbreviated to Sudoku (pronounced SUE-dough-coo; su = number, doku
= single). In 1986, Nikoli introduced two innovations which
guaranteed the popularity of the puzzle: the number of givens was
restricted to no more than 32 and puzzles became "symmetrical,"
meaning the givens were distributed in rotationally symmetric
cells. It is now published in mainstream Japanese periodicals, such
as the Asahi Shimbun. Within Japan, Nikoli still holds the
trademark for the name Sudoku; other publications in Japan use
alternative names. Bringing the process full-circle, Dell
Magazines, which published the original Number Place puzzle,
now also publishes two Sudoku magazines: Original Sudoku and
Extreme Sudoku.
Within the context of puzzle history, parallels are often cited
to Rubik's Cube, another logic puzzle popular in the 1980s. Sudoku
has been called the "Rubik's Cube of the 21st century."
HOW TO PLAY:
The process of solving a Sudoku puzzle — simple in theory yet
often maddening in practice — is to fill in all the empty squares.
However each square has only one unique solution, as it must obey
the rule of Sudoku: each row, column, and 3x3 region must contain
one and only one of the numbers 1 through 9.
Sometimes it is obvious what must go in a particular square
while for another a great deal of mental torture is involved in
working through all the possibilities. Much like placing a single
piece in a jigsaw puzzle, there must be a place to fit it in
somewhere; sometimes finding the correct spot is easy, sometimes it
takes ages.
There is no correct sequence of square allocations to make.
Different people have there different techniques for solving the
Sudoku puzzle, and will tackle the squares in different orders. The
end result, however, is always the same, as there is only one
unique solution for each puzzle.
THE PUZZLE:
THE CACHE:
Once you have solved the puzzle, use the formula below to
determine the correct coordinates. You'll be looking for a small
container holding a logbook and a few small trade items. The lucky
FTF cacher will also discover a customized
FTF Certificate to mark the ocassion. Bring your own pen to
sign the log. Have fun!
N35° 10.(Cg)(He)(Ef)
W89° 51.(Ag)(Ba)(Gc)
