Conceptis launched Kakuro

Friday, January 6, 2006

The global logic puzzle craze, started by Sudoku, just got crazier as Conceptis launched Kakuro . Kakuro, also known as Cross Sums in the USA, has been a popular number logic puzzle in Japan since 1986.

According to Conceptis’ marketing department, Conceptis Kakuro puzzles will be syndicated by King Features to daily newspapers worldwide starting February. In addition, new magazines and books with Kakuro puzzles by Conceptis will be released in the coming months by several international publishers.

Conceptis Puzzles, the leading company in the international logic puzzles market, has once again succeeded to develop a top quality product. According to Dave Green, president of Conceptis, Conceptis Kakuro puzzles provide a different and unique experience compared to the other Kakuro puzzles available on the market today.

“As with Conceptis Sudoku, we achieved this by first developing a Kakuro Analyzer“, says Green. “We then analyzed hundreds of Kakuro puzzles from other creators around the world, learning how they are constructed, which logical tricks they use, what makes them easy or difficult, and most important, what makes them fun to solve.“

Making the easy puzzles really easy

Using the conclusions of this comprehensive research, Conceptis developed a correlation algorithm, enabling the company’s puzzle generator to provide full control of the quality, difficulty, appearance and fun elements of each Kakuro puzzle by Conceptis.

The most significant challenge in developing Conceptis Kakuro was making the easy puzzles really easy, so they can be solved and enjoyed by as many people as possible. To cope with this challenge, Conceptis’ Kakuro algorithm creates in the easy puzzles at least one starting point in each of the four quadrants, and ensures there are no bottlenecks when solving the puzzle from beginning to end.

Six difficulty levels

Conceptis Kakuro puzzles come in a wide range of difficulty levels from very easy to extremely difficult, taking anything from five minutes to several hours to solve. The puzzles are also available in many sizes, including 8x8, 10x10, 10x12, 12x12, 12x16, 14x14, 14x20, and 16x22. More sizes will be added later this year.

In addition to having lots of interesting logic situations and being more fun to solve, the six difficulty levels, the range of sizes and the direct EPS/PDF file export make every Kakuro puzzle by Conceptis ideal content for magazine, newspaper and book publishers all over the world.

Conceptis Kakuro has been announced merely four months after the successful launching of Conceptis Sudoku and a few weeks after the launching 8 new Sudoku variants.

About Kakuro

Kakuro is a grid based puzzle, often referred to as a mathematical transliteration of the crossword. The object is to fill all empty squares using numbers 1 to 9 so the sum of each horizontal block equals the clue on its left, and the sum of each vertical block equals the clue on its top. In addition, no number may be used in the same block more than once.

Recent media quotes referring to Kakuro’s success

“Kakuro already is popular in Japan and the United Kingdom, and publishers in the USA are confident enough it will catch on here” (In a puzzling development, kakuro beckons, Carol Memmott, USA TODAY, Dec 7, 2005)

"It's huge in Japan. It's big in Europe. And now it's looking to invade the U.S.” (Kakuro's Coming to Town, Rachel Deahl, PW Daily, Nov 22, 2005)

“Kakuro has the same elements as Sudoku and hits the same buttons” (Beating the conundrum, Pete Sinden, Financial Times, Nov 18, 2005)

“Kakuro is Japan's best-kept secret, a puzzle that millions prefer to Sudoku” (The new grid on the block, Justin McCurry, The Guardian, Sep 14, 2005)