Brand New Puzzle, the OCTO, Challenges Sudoku

ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Doug Gardner, a government computer
security specialist from Arlington, Virginia, has invented a new mathematical
logic puzzle intended to challenge Sudoku's reign as America's paper puzzle of
choice. The new patent-pending puzzle, called the OCTO, expands on Sudoku by
introducing several new elements, including an octagonal grid, diagonal lines
of non-repeating numbers, and summed number clues. The OCTO puzzle's unique
structure and additional clues increase the variety of techniques available to
the solver, making an OCTO puzzle a richer puzzle experience relative to
Sudoku. OCTO puzzles can also be created with variable difficulty, depending
on how many numbers are initially provided as clues.

OCTO puzzles are available regularly in a half-dozen major university
newspapers, with a total weekly circulation of over 100,000. Three books of
OCTO puzzles have been published and are available online. The first two
books, "OCTO Unleashed" and "OCTO Reloaded," include OCTO puzzles in the full
range of difficulty, from Easy to Very Hard. The latest book, "OCTO Genesis,"
includes only Easy and Medium OCTO puzzles.

Doug Gardner, the inventor of the OCTO puzzle, is a self-proclaimed life-long
puzzle fanatic. He developed the OCTO puzzle in a deliberate attempt to
combine and improve on two different puzzles he enjoys. "I was getting bored
with Sudoku puzzles and I really enjoy the crossword puzzle-like number game
called Kakuro. I thought it would be great if I could combine the two puzzles
into a single puzzle that required techniques from both. It turns out,
octagons were the key."

Contact:

Doug Gardner
571-230-7700
douggardner@alumni.rice.edu
URL: http://home.comcast.net/~douglasdgardner/site/

This release was issued through eReleases(TM). For more information, visit
http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE OCTO

Doug Gardner, +1-571-230-7700, douggardner@alumni.rice.edu