Chain Sudoku (Full Version)

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gilg -> Chain Sudoku (8/6/2009 4:29:11 PM)

Hi everyone,

A new number logic puzzle we call Chain Sudoku will soon be officially announced on the site. Before the puzzle and it's Interactive game are announced (along with adding Chain Sudoku to the weekly puzzles in My Sudoku) we would like to ask for your help with testing the game and making sure it does not contain any bugs.

Could you please visit the new Chain Sudoku page at http://www.conceptispuzzles.com/index.aspx?uri=puzzle/sudoku/chain play the samples there and post your comments here?

Thank you very much and enjoy!



zetafax -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/6/2009 10:18:40 PM)

It seems like Irregular Sudoku, but "more" irregular :) I am a little borryed with Classic Sudoku, so another one "non-classic" is good for me when I want Sudoku. I started from easiest () and solved them very quickly. So Medium is too easy for me. But it's already too late for going further..... Very hard one will take more time and will be more challenging, I hope ;)



ripcitygamer -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/7/2009 9:43:03 AM)

I must have seen this before in Games magazine... fun variant. No issues with the web implementation. Was going to complain about it being hard to see the lines, but then I discovered that it outlined a group whenever you hovered over a bubble; sweet!



abban -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/10/2009 7:11:34 PM)

I tryied the medium example: it is fun, it recalls the irregular sudoku and I'll enjoy playing it



MathLives -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/10/2009 11:18:50 PM)

I really enjoyed it.  I have been bored by regular sudoku and this is a great variation.  It made me think but wasn't too hard.  It's great that you can do a 5 by 5. Looking forward to doing more of them.[:)]



decrier -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/11/2009 1:45:10 PM)

I hope you guys get sued. You stole this "Concept" directly from Strimko.com .. Strimko has been around for a few months now and your chain sudoku is nothing more then a complete ripoff of the strimko puzzles. I just informed them of your site and look forward to hearing about them taking you guys down.



chaosmanor -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/11/2009 5:11:35 PM)

I have to admit that decrier has a point, although I certainly wasn't going to be as strident about it!  I was just going to ask if you had worked out an arrangement with the Grabarchuk Family, the way that Games Magazine has.

Ultimately, while I don't know a lot about copyright law, the fact is that all of these number-logic puzzles, Sudoku included, are variants of Latin Squares, something that Leonhard Euler investigated more than 200 years ago.  It will be hard for anyone to claim "original intellectual property" for something that old.

At the least, I think that this site should acknowledge Strimko and the Grabarchuk Family website, which is http://www.grabarchukpuzzles.com



decrier -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/11/2009 8:21:10 PM)

the reason i am annoyed by it is all the postings i've seen about this great "new" game all make it seem like something conceptis just came up with themselves. rgw grabarchuk family has sole copyright and publishing rights to this particular puzzle variation. it would be one thing if any of the puzzle had been changed by conceptis, like using letters instead of numbers, but the only thing different between the 2 is conceptis has made more then 7 number puzzles. Which is something the grabarchuks are releasing in a published pay to by collection of strimko puzzles. conceptis has done absolutely nothing to distinguish their game from strimko except minor presentation changes (having the number selections and notes be popups instead of the way strimko.com has it set up), and nowhere did they give any credit to the design to the people who have been releasing puzzles under that design for multiple months. It makes conceptis look like a bunch of amatuer thieves and i hope to hell that when people realize that they are stealing their material, they outright stop using this site and put conceptis out of business. strimko isn't some generic addictinggames.com/newgrounds.com flash-esque puzzle game with loose ip rights applied, they have full legal backing to their rights. There's no excuse for conceptis stealing and releasing these puzzles.



serhiy-g -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/11/2009 8:57:36 PM)

I can just confirm the above said. Some months ago I warned Conceptis Puzzles that if they will use the idea of Strimko (under any name) with the same features as our Strimko, we will understand that as a direct and clear infringement of our intellectual property rights. They didn't accept our warning and did their step, simply STEALING our intellectual property for their commercial use.

In fact, Conceptis Puzzles is misappropriating our Strimko (www.strimko.com) concept, and now tries to start using it without any authorization or licence from our end.

The Strimko concept is OUR ORIGINAL INVENTION launched in November, 2008, at www.strimko.com. Since then, Strimko has been officially published (both in weekly & monthly interactive and printable versions) on www.puzzles.com, www.mathpuzzle.com, www.smart-kit.com, www.puzzlersparadise.com, www.archimedes-lab.org, and www.brainbashers.com. And recently it has been published in the September issue of GAMES magazine.

The Strimko puzzle is explicitly under our copyright, and isn't in a public domain.

If you have some specific comments in this matter, we'd appreciate to see them at strimko@gmail.com . Thank you and keep puzzling!

Best,
Serhiy Grabarchuk



sharonella -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/12/2009 7:51:43 AM)

seriously????

I am not a lawyer or anything, but as an avid puzzler solver, I see this chain suduko concept as nothing more than one logical step away from the irregular sudukos that Conceptis has been offering for quite a while now.  Just a little more irregular because now the connecting groups can connect diagonally, and don't have to have touching sides. 

I suppose they could make the grids a little bigger & then use squares or diamonds or hexagons instead of circles. But circles work better visually (in my mind).

Was this "original invention", admittedly based on latin squares and existing suduko, thought of after seeing the irregular sudokus here in Conceptis?

just wondering....

sharonella



 



dave -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/12/2009 1:12:22 PM)

One could possibly use the word “steal” in this case. Following this language one could also state that “stolen” ideas of Sudoku, Kakuro, Nonogram, Battleships and many others are being used in millions of commercial puzzles published every day. And so, looking back at the history of popular puzzle concepts, there would have been a long chain of “stealing” turning thousands of puzzle creators all over the world into “criminals”. Fortunately it is possible to look at this from a different perspective where new puzzle concepts are freely used by puzzle creators all over the world for the common benefit of the concept inventors, those puzzle creators, and the puzzle fans.
 
The position of Conceptis in the world of puzzles has always been improving implementation of existing popular puzzles rather than inventing new ones and bringing them to the attention of the whole world. We strongly believe that our efforts of increasing the popularity of such puzzle concepts work to the benefit of all parties including concept inventors, puzzlers and ourselves. What better example do we have than the way Nikoli benefited from the boom of Sudoku initiated by Wayne Gould.
 
Back to the Chain Sudoku/Strimko concept. We see and position this concept as a pure Sudoku variant. It follows the exact same logic and uses the same rules as the well known Irregular Sudoku which has been around more than 10 years. To demonstrate how close these puzzles behave, it took us only several minutes to modify the algorithm and the graphical export of our Sudoku generator to enable it to produce Chain Sudoku puzzles.
 
As for the legal side of this issue in most of the countries puzzle concepts CANNOT be copyrighted (see article under http://www.welshkatz.com/?t=11&la=365&format=xml&p=822). The name “Strimko” on the other hand can be a registered Trade Mark prohibiting it from being used in countries where it has been officially registered. In addition, it goes without saying that the content of the Strimko puzzles as well as the content of all other puzzles produced by the Grabarchuk family are automatically copyrighted. This, of course applies to Conceptis as well as to any other creators constructing their own puzzles. So legally speaking there is absolutely NO infringements of anyone’s intellectual property in this case.
 
In any case, no matter what the legal side defines, Conceptis always follows the ways of cooperation and good spirit with all partners we are working with and we believe we can be partners with Grabarchuk family (as we’ve been for years) rather than enemies. Unfortunately Serhiy has stopped replying to our e-mails a couple of months ago when we suggested him discussing mutually beneficial ways of cooperation. We will gladly resume our cooperation with the Grabarchuk family whenever they accept this, place the name Strimko with credits to the Grabarchuk family on our site and send an official newsletter when we receive Serhiy’s permission to do this.


Looking forward to happy and peaceful puzzling



Dave Green



chaosmanor -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/12/2009 4:57:44 PM)

If nothing else, this thread has allowed the various sides to state their positions.  It is not my place to say who is in the right, as far as copyright law is concerned; I don't know enough about the law, and being an American, the rules here can be radically different (I am told, by a friend who *does* know, as he works in publishing) than they are in much of the rest of the world.

Now that Conceptis has stated that they are (and have been) willing to work with the Grabarchuk Family, the ball seems to be in the Grabarchuk court, now.  For myself, seeing both parties publicly stating their positions makes me feel a little better about the whole matter.  If some sort of rapprochement can be worked out, that would be great, and I hope that it can.

One final thought: while circles seem to work well, I wouldn't mind seeing diamonds [;)] 



serhiy-g -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/12/2009 5:10:17 PM)

Dave knows all our correspondence, so I even have no wish to comment where he's not telling the truth or simply contradicts to himself in his comments. And it's no surprise that he still shifts emphasis onto things visually more impressive and pathetic but less important, relevant and productive.

Also, there's a much more wider problem in the Strimko versus Chain Sudoku case. In the first instance, it includes Dave's misinterpretation and simplification of Copyright law and Dave's juggling with it (like his tricky manipulating with what Copyrigt law protects and what doesn't). Also, besides the copyright matters, there are intellectual property rights, moral rights, authorship, attributions, and credits. Last but not least, there's a business relations and ethic. It's for a wider discussion, though.

All in all, reading Dave's post I just can see too many strong cons in it, and just a few weak pros. Overall, no space for any real discussion or resolving the situation.

Best,
Serhiy Grabarchuk



mgwh -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/13/2009 1:21:19 AM)

There's really nothing legally wrong in my opinion with what Conceptis did, because concepts such as the concept behind a puzzle aren't copyrightable or intellectual property, as far as I understand it.  The crossword puzzle concept is certainly free to anyone who wants to create a crossword puzzle, just as the concept of having a computer forum with messages and replies like this is, which can legally be implemented by anyone who wants to.  This type of puzzle is no different.  It would be illegal for Conceptis to republish specific puzzles with specific numbers in them, because those ARE copyrightable (just like a specific Pic-a-pix puzzle would be).  Further, it is GOOD for people to take concepts and improve upon the way they are implemented, which is half the reason for patent law -- on the one hand protecting inventors from duplication of ideas but spurring innovation by allowing others to build upon existing ones.  In this case, I tried both the Conceptis "Chain Sudoku" and the "Strimko" puzzles and found that the Conceptis software implementation of the puzzle was definitely an improvement over Strimko, so, the world of puzzles is a better place.  If the Strimko people feel that there is a legal issue involved, then of course they are free to pursue it in legal avenues, so us non-lawyers really don't have a say anyway.

Aside from the legal issue, there's a moral issue, which is how Conceptis introduced Chain Sudoku as their own, without a tip of the hat to the originators (if they did in fact "invent" these puzzles).  That would have been nice.  I think you pulled the same thing with Ken-Ken's and racing the New York Times to popularize them.  I don't think it would hurt Conceptis to give a little credit to the evolution of these puzzles.  We all google and explore, and whether it's Strimko, Logic Paradise magazines in the Japanese bookstore, or Griddlers.net, we know about it.  You'll be the best by being the best, not by failing to acknowledge that others exist.




jeremycindy1 -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/13/2009 3:33:00 PM)

i just did some chain sudokus for the 1st time & absolutely loved it. i got on the forum to place a comment about how wonderful it is. i assumed there would be thread after thread of people loving it. instead there is all kinds of fighting, accusations and just a bunch of stupid stuff. i don't care who invented it. i'm positive this is probably the most user-friendly sight for it. if there were copyright problems with puzzles, things would be a mess, because everybody with access to publishing is printing sudokus & all kinds of puzzles. i love the chain sudoku. thanks conceptis.



jeremycindy1 -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/13/2009 6:09:30 PM)

ok i went to the strimko site, which i wasn't aware of. the puzzle is the same, of course. but the conceptis site is much more user-friendly. in fact, i couldn't do any of the strimko puzzles, because the strings didn't highlight, which helped me see it better. & it took longer to keep clicking the numbers over. also the strings were more interlocked on conceptis, which made it more interesting. i assume conceptis consulted lawyers over legalities before they launched their puzzle, which i'm now addicted to after just one day.



jhitchin -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/13/2009 8:37:07 PM)

I wasn't going to join the fray here, but I wanted to add that several years ago, back when I first started getting Logic Paradise, I also got a few Japanese Number Place magazines.

They had this new puzzle which was a 9x9 square and squares in the puzzle were different colors, so besides the 1-9 both vertically and horizontally, each color had nine squares colored that color that were all connected, usually on the diagonal, and these had to be 1-9 as well.

Almost nothing in the Sudoku world is new.

Looking forward to seeing the Chain Sudoku in the weekly puzzles!

Jeff



dave -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/14/2009 12:21:09 AM)

Thank you mqwh for your comment


Agree with every word you said. As for the moral issue you mention, there is a reason we haven’t acknowledged Strimko and Grabarchuk family yet. Several months ago, when we developed support for CalcuDocu (which we named KenDoku at the time) a couple of days after announcing it to the world we received an official letter from KENKEN trademark owners in the US requesting us to change the name so that there would be absolutely no association between Gakken’s KENKEN and Conceptis’ KenDoku products.


Since then (and after consulting with legal advisors) we avoid mentioning on our website names of people, products or companies without their prior authorization. We tried to discuss ways of cooperating with the Grabarchuk family but at some point they stopped responding to our emails. Whenever Grabarchuk gives us this authorization we will indeed be happy to officially acknowledge him as a father of the concept.


Thanks, Dave



chaosmanor -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/14/2009 6:37:49 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jeremycindy1

i just did some chain sudokus for the 1st time & absolutely loved it. i got on the forum to place a comment about how wonderful it is. i assumed there would be thread after thread of people loving it. instead there is all kinds of fighting, accusations and just a bunch of stupid stuff. i don't care who invented it. i'm positive this is probably the most user-friendly sight for it. if there were copyright problems with puzzles, things would be a mess, because everybody with access to publishing is printing sudokus & all kinds of puzzles. i love the chain sudoku. thanks conceptis.


I tried very hard to bite my tongue, but I just can't.  I really need to say this, so here goes...

It is comments like the above that keep me from being more active in posting to fora such as this.  The poor grammar, lack of proper punctuation and capitalizations, and the hyperbole in this simple paragraph are truly astounding.  Calling a rational and well-mannered discussion of legal and moral issues "fighting" and "stupid" shows how little the author understands the Real World, and how much s/he tries to reduce his/her life to sound bites.  And there are far too many people like this, and far worse, who make no apologies for their ignorance, and make no attempts to improve themselves.  The good thing, the really positive thing about this post is that, so far, there have been very few like it on the Conceptis site.  Let us hope that it stays that way.



sharonella -> RE: Chain Sudoku (8/14/2009 7:01:04 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jhitchin

I wasn't going to join the fray here, but I wanted to add that several years ago, back when I first started getting Logic Paradise, I also got a few Japanese Number Place magazines.

They had this new puzzle which was a 9x9 square and squares in the puzzle were different colors, so besides the 1-9 both vertically and horizontally, each color had nine squares colored that color that were all connected, usually on the diagonal, and these had to be 1-9 as well.

Almost nothing in the Sudoku world is new.

Looking forward to seeing the Chain Sudoku in the weekly puzzles!

Jeff


"Almost nothing in the Sudoku world is new" - AMEN!!

I visited the Strimko site and expected to see all sorts of sudoku & sudoku variants.  I was thinking - Cool, another source of Sudoku!!

Instead, only the "chain sudoku", as if it was invented in a vacuum - all by itself - sprung fully formed from someone's imagination.

On the other hand, on the Conceptis website, here you find all sorts of Sudoku - small & large - 6 x 6, 9 x 9, 12 x 12 16 x 16, as well as irregular in many sizes.  As I said before, to me, chain sudoku is a logical progression from what already exists in the sudoku world.  For any one person or company to say they own the copyright to the concept or any of the many variations is ludicrous to me.

sharonella



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