The Best Japanese Import Since Nintendo

My name is Matt and I’m an addict.

OK, perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic. It’s not like my vice is heroin, crank or even booze (though I have been known to get a bit saucy from time to time). No, my drug is the addictively beautiful and symmetrical game of So Doku.

The Times offers some free So Doku puzzles and pointers, and manages to explain the game in fairly simple terms:

To solve a Su Doku puzzle, every digit from 1 to 9 must appear in each of the nine vertical columns, in each of the nine horizontal rows, and in each of the nine boxes. They range in difficulty from easy to very hard, depending on the positioning of the numbers you’re given to start with.

Sure, that description doesn’t make it sound like Hungry Hungry Hippos (or any of the other great games of our age) and sure, you seem a bit nerdy when hovering over a So Doku page, penciling, erasing then penciling in again numbers into tiny squares, and sure, playing it does make you look like one of those crazies on the train (I always feel like a Russell-Crowe-Beautiful-Mind Freak – but that’s just me). However, there is something almost lyrical about the bizarre simplicity of So Doku, about getting something “right”, about catching that elusive “a-ha” feeling.

Don’t believe me? I dare you to try one of the Mensa-like puzzles, defy you to keep a smile off your face when you successfully complete it (or defy you not to tear it up when your feeble mind proves incapable).

I’m sure you’re now thinking, “This dumbass doesn’t have a job, of course he can afford to spend hours each day on a stupid game.” To such an argument, I say TAKE THAT BACK! SO DOKU IS NOT A STUPID GAME! SHE IS MY MISTRESS, MY TEMPTRESS! SHE UNDERSTANDS ME LIKE NONE OTHER! I KNEW YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND!

Besides, I really don’t have as much time to devote to So Doku as you would think (or I would like), what with fantasy baseball season entering its stretch drive and fantasy football season draft just days away. No, friends, I am a busy man.