Barry

Why this site exists

I am not a record holder and not a competitive solver. I am someone who plays a lot of sudoku, and who kept hitting the same wall: most help out there does not actually explain anything. You look up how an X-Wing works, you get a tidy diagram with four arrows, and then your own board looks nothing like it.

The other half of the problem is the hint button. It gives you a number. You fill it in, the puzzle moves on, and the next one is just as stuck as this one was.

So I started writing down the explanation I actually wanted: where the pattern sits on a real board, why the deduction holds, and what it does not let you conclude.

What I do here

I write the guides, and I check them. Every board in every article is a position taken from a real game rather than a drawing, and every cell named in the text can be found in the figure beside it. When the words and the picture disagree, the picture wins and the words get rewritten.

That is the entire method. No inside knowledge and no special access — just the habit of testing a claim against the board before publishing it.

What I am not claiming

• Not an expert on everything. Some techniques here I use rarely myself; if a section reads thin, it probably is.
• Not infallible. If a step does not hold up on your board, that is a bug rather than a matter of opinion. Say so and it gets fixed.
• Not selling a course. The game and the articles are free; advertising pays for the hosting.

What is here

Twenty technique guides, ordered from the first moves you learn to the ones you reach for when a puzzle stalls, and the game itself: five difficulty levels, with a hint that lays out the reasoning instead of handing over a digit.

If you read only one page, start with the technique guide index — it is arranged in the order the moves actually get used.

Corrections and questions go to the contact page.