History & culture
Where Sudoku came from, how it spread, and the people who shaped how the puzzle is solved today — Maki Kaji, Howard Garns, the variants tree.
Why the Japanese name stuck
Sudoku is American by invention but Japanese by name — how the branding survived the global takeover, and what it tells you about how puzzles travel.
6 min read
Who actually invented Sudoku
The honest story of how Sudoku came to be — Howard Garns in Indianapolis, Maki Kaji in Tokyo, Wayne Gould in Hong Kong, and the path from each to every newspaper's back page.
6 min read