Help me remember the name of a puzzle

Factual Questions
1

Several months ago my local newspaper ran a fluff story about this puzzle fad that was going on in the UK. It involved a square that was divided into nine smaller squares. Each square had nine spaces. The object was to fit the numbers 1 through 9 in each square and horizontal/vertical line. It’s just the sort of puzzle to occupy my currently bounteous time–but I can’t remember the name! I think it started with a Q? So far Googling has been of little help…sigh.

Anyone know what I’m talking about?

2

Sudoku

3

Sudoku?

4

Hot damn! Thanks.

Of course, this probably should have been in Cafe Society. Ah well, at least my question was answered.

5

This actually comes from Japan, su = number and doku = solve so sudoku is to solve a number (puzzle). I found the puzzle from a UK newspaper section in the Yomiuri (English) newspaper and got hooked. Fortunately, there quite a few sudoku books available here.

6

An online playable version of the game.

Be warned, it gets rather addictive!!!

Grim

7

Here’s another site for playing it online, along with a couple of other neat puzzles. I, for one, am seriously addicted to Light Up.

8

The Washington Post started running these recently in its comics pages. They rate the difficulty of each puzzle.

9

Su Doku page at The Times of London: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,18209,00.html

3 puzzles a day at different levels of difficulty, 1-week archive.
Another place to play online: http://www.sudokuhints.com/

2 levels of hints, and if you’re still stuck it’ll tell you how to solve the next step.

10

The 2005 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship had a sudoku with different-shaped subregions. In addition, some subregions wrap around the edges.

Get the puzzle pdf on this page: http://wpc.puzzles.com/p5/index.htm
The pdf is password protected. You get the password via a link lower on the page, but for reference the password is 2gr8work.

11

数 - [SUU, SU, kazu, kazo(-eru)] means number, several or count.
独 - [DOKU, hitori] means alone, single or unique (and also Germany).

The most literal translation of su doku would probably be “unique number”.