Layout of Diagonal Sudoku board. Note the nine regions marked by thick borders and the two diagonals marked by gray squares.
Sudoku is a logic-based puzzle game. Although it uses numbers, it is not a mathematical game and no arithmetic is required. The digits 1-9 are used purely for their familiarity and ease of recognition; the letters A-I or any arbitrary set of nine distinct symbols could just as easily be used.
The playing board is a 9x9 grid of squares, for 81 squares total. The squares are grouped into "regions" or "blocks," each of which contains nine squares. Thus the entire board contains nine regions, arranged in a 3x3 grid (see image at right).
At the start of the game some squares will already contain digits, known as "clues" or "givens." The player must place digits in the empty squares so that each column, row, region and the two long diagonals contains exactly one each of the digits 1 through 9. The puzzle is solved when all of the squares have been filled.
Players must use logic and a variety of elimination techniques to solve the puzzle in the least possible amount of time.
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