Question 1

Can you explain the names of the new sudoku bundles?

Accepted Answer

This FAQ clarifies the names of the recent sudoku bundles that have been released for Puzzle Maker Pro.

This tutorial applies to

Puzzle Maker Pro - Sudoku - New Grid Rules Bundle
Puzzle Maker Pro - More Clues Add-On for Sudoku 9x9 Regular
Puzzle Maker Pro - More Clues Add-On for Sudoku Multidokus
Puzzle Maker Pro - More Clues Add-On for Sudoku Other Grid Sizes
Puzzle Maker Pro - More Clues Add-On for Sudoku Bundle

New Grid Rules and More Clues

Some of the new sudoku products and bundles have names that may not be instantly clear or intuitive. We've tried to use better names than "Bundle 13" and "Bundle 14", but had to invent new names that weren't used yet for sudokus. We'll explain the logic behind this names here:

New Grid Rules means that there are new rules applied when constructing the sudoku grids. Checkerboard and Nonconsecutive both have restrictions of the values of each cell in the grid. The grid does not follow the normal sudoku rules (1-9 in each column, in each row and in each 3x3 subgrid), but has additional restrictions.
More Clues means that additional clues are added to the sudoku puzzle. The sudoku grid is constructed using the normal sudoku rules, but when the sudoku puzzle is constructed (removing clues from the grid), additional clues are added.

New Grid Rules

New Grid Rules consists of two different puzzle types:

Checkerboard Sudoku: Cells are colored in a checkerboard pattern. White cells have only odd numbers (1,3,5,7 for 8x8 sudoku), while gray cells have only even numbers (2,4,6,8 for 8x8 sudoku). Due to the nature of checkerboards, these sudokus are only available for even grid sizes (6x6, 8x8, 10x10, 12x12, 14x14 and 16x16).
Nonconsecutive Sudoku: Consecutive numbers, such as 1-2, 4-5, etc can never be next to each other in the grid. For this puzzle, 9 and 1 are considered consecutive as well.

More Clues

The More Clues products each offer 5 different sudoku additions:

Odd/Even - Mark the even cells in the grid
Consecutive - Mark some of the cell borders where the cells have consecutive numbers
Difference - Indicate the difference between some of the cells
Compare - Indicate which of two bordering cells has a larger value than the other
Threshold - Innovative sudoku variation where numbers greater than a threshold are marked.

Getting Started with Nonconsecutive Sudoku

This tutorial applies to:

https://www.bookpublishertools.com/product/puzzle-maker-pro-nonconsecutive-sudoku-9x9
Puzzle Maker Pro - Nonconsecutive Sudoku Other Squares

Nonconsecutive Sudoku

Nonconsecutive Sudoku is a sudouk variation with additional rules for the grid: consecutive numbers cannot be adjacent. In other words, when there's a 3 in a cell, the cells next to it - horizontally and vertically - cannot contain a 2 or a 4.

In our modules for Nonconsecutive Sudoku, the highest and lowest numbers are considered consecutive as well: In a 9x9 grid, the 1 and 9 can also not be adjacent to each other.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/tEiJuBOOHT/Nonconsecutive.PNG (Nonconsecutive.PNG)

This image illustrates the impact of this rule: In a regular sudoku, if the numbers 2, 4 and 6 would be placed like this, there would be 6 available numbers for the center cell: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9. (in a 9x9 grid sudoku).

For Nonconsecutive Sudoku there are quite a few restrictions:

the 2 removes the 1 and 3 from the options
the 4 removes the 3 and 5 from the options
the 6 removes the 5 and 7 from the options

Instead of 6 different numbers, there are only 2 options for the center cell: the 8 and 9.

As you can see the nonconsecutive rule hugely diminishes the number of options for the grids. As a result, there are significantly fewer nonconsecutive sudoku puzzles available.

Find Nonconsecutive Sudoku in Puzzle Maker Pro

To create Nonconsecutive Sudoku puzzles in Puzzle Maker Pro:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/GYxuecZjSI/Nonconsecutive%20Sudoku%20Overview.png (Nonconsecutive Sudoku Overview)

Go to Sudoku Variations
Select one of the Sudoku Grid Sizes that are available for Nonconsecutive Sudoku (6x6, 8x8, 9x9, 10x10, 12x12, 14x14, 15x15, 16x16)
Select "Nonconsecutive" in the Variation menu.

There are quite a few tutorials about all the regular features of Sudoku in Puzzle Maker Pro, ranging from grid setup to symbol options, please check the tutorials below.

Note: Even though it's possible to use images for Nonconsecutive Sudokus, it doesn't make much sense, and the sudokus may be impossible to solve, since there are no odd and even images.

Can you explain the names of the new sudoku bundles?

Getting Started with Nonconsecutive Sudoku

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