Brits Crazy For New Puzzle

People Everywhere Seen Playing Logic Game

(AP) 

Japanese publisher Nikoli Inc. claims to have introduced the puzzle to Japan in the 1980s from the United States, where it was called Number Place. It features in a variety of Japanese magazines and books, but lacks the public profile it has achieved in Britain, where it has been discussed on daytime talk shows and evening news programs.

The British boom can be traced to Gould, a New Zealander who discovered Sudoku on a visit to Tokyo in 1997. He created a computer program that generates the puzzles, then offered them for free to The Times. He now supplies puzzles to newspapers in a dozen countries, including the United States.

Sudoku's success in Britain is partly due to fierce newspaper competition, and partly to a deeply ingrained puzzle-solving habit in this nation of Scrabble-lovers and cryptic-crossword addicts.

“I think there's something in the British personality--they like their puzzles hard,” said the 59-year-old Gould.

Some argue that Sudoku fever will fade once newspapers lose interest. Danesi says the puzzle--like past sensations such as 1980s icon Rubik's Cube--is likely to retain a strong following even when it has faded from the headlines.

He says it is one of the classic puzzle types, enduring mind-benders whose appeal runs deep.

“It seems to be part of the human system of everyday life to do puzzles,” Danesi said. “In a small, minuscule way, solving a puzzle gives us relief from the larger philosophical puzzles.”