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Legend has it that the popular Sudoku number game was invented by Leonhard Euler, although this is incorrect. Leonhard’s work was related directly to the mathematical anomaly known as Latin Squares, in which a set of numbers will appear in a square that has the same number of rows and columns. The rule is that each number must appear in each row and column no more or less than once. So, a 4 x 4 square must have the numbers one through to four in no particular order at least twice per square. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Sudoku, which is credited to Howard Garns and was originally called 'Number Place', expands this concept so that you have three 3 x 3 squares, or exactly nine columns and rows in total. Each square must count from one through to nine, and so must each row and column, without repeating any number per square, row or column. So careful number placement is pretty much essential to be successful here.

And after a childhood of looking at and typing in BASIC program listings containing pages of DATA statements, you'd have thought that this game would suit me perfectly, so I hurriedly loaded both versions to give them a go.

It would have been very easy for Kevin Thacker to write a very basic implementation of Sudoku; indeed, he could well have written it in a high-level programming language like BASIC. Presentation isn't really too important here, which could be said for most good puzzle games. But he has put in the effort and come up with something really good for both the Amstrad and Speccy, although the CPC's better colour handling facilities could have been put to use over the Sinclair game, as both look almost identical.

There are a couple of excellent 'Oriental'-styled musical scores, except if you have a mere 48k Speccy, in which case the proceedings are completely silent. Firstly, though, to the all-important options. You may either control everything through joystick or keys, as you would expect, and then you may choose to either make, play or solve a puzzle, which are all self-explanatory.

I'll deal with playing the game, as all of the subsequent choices are available in making and solving modes.

The first thing that greets you is to choose the size of the matrix, either being 4 x 4, 6 x 6, 8 x 8, the standard 9 x 9, 10 x 10 or a maximum or 12 x 12, with numbers counting through to a hexadecimal C for the maximum in the latter two, in other words, A, B and C replacing the numbers 10, 11 and 12 respectively. This really is for beginners and advanced problem-solvers alike, with the easier levels being ideal for the younger mind just in case you want to introduce your children to 8-bit computing.

Thereafter, you have the option of altering the difficulty level, with a choice of random or pre-set puzzles to choose from. The controls are intuitive and quick to learn, and there is a really good learning curve to work through. You can also set the puzzles for others to solve, or solve those in the newspapers as stated above, which is rather handy if that one in The Independent has been bugging you.

Overall, Cronosoft's Su-do'ku is a slick and addictive implementation of the paper-based original. Get number-crunching with this comprehensive puzzler!

Product: Su-do'ku
Price: £TBA
Author: Kevin Thacker
Publisher: Cronosoft
Website: www.cronosoft.co.uk
Platform: Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48/128k and Amstrad CPC