"Father of Sudoku" reckons Slitherlink is next big thing News

The Japanese puzzle publisher who helped bring Sudoku to the world's attention has high hopes for Slitherlink - the puzzle from which Hudson's 10/10-scoring DS Slitherlink title is derived.

Not many people outside of the ones who keep filing restraining orders against us for mentioning it in every article know about Slitherlink, but Maki Kaji - whose business card says "Father of Sudoku" - does.

Asked by the BBC what would be the next big thing - the "son of Sudoku" - Kaji "showed me 'Slitherlink', a new game in the latest issue of his magazine," the BBC's Chris Hogg reports.

"This is fantastic," Kaji told the BBC. "But it is really just for people who are puzzle fanatics. It's not like Sudoku which has universal appeal. Sudoku is enjoyed by people from five to 90."

Slitherlink challenges you to snake a single line around a collection of 0s, 1s, 2s and 3s assembled in boxes on a grid. You have to touch the outside lines of each box the number of times equal to the number inside it.

Each puzzle has just one solution, and figuring it out is a process of elimination - like Picross, you should never have to guess, but unlike Sudoku, it's not a game that demands you try and keep mental track of several "levels" of the solution at once, something that we felt gave Slitherlink the edge.

But enough about that. Maki Kaji's time is spent refining puzzles with the readership of his quarterly magazine, and we like him even though he prefers Sudoku to Slitherlink, which is incorrect. Read the BBC's full report for more.