Author: Anders Holst ([email protected])
This is the traditional Kakuro game, examples of which can be found in several places. Free and good generators are not easy to find though, so I had to write one myself. The puzzle has a grid like a crossword, which should be filled with numbers such that the sum of them match the horizontal and vertical clues, and the same number must not occur more than once in each sum.
Kakuro shares much of its control system with other games where you fill in numbers in squares, such as Solo, Unequal, Towers, Keen, etc.
To play Kakuro, (left) click the mouse in a square and type in a number. You can erase the number in a selected square by pressing space.
If you right click in a square, you can add a pencil mark. You can add several pencil marks in a square, but not more than one of each number. If you try to add the same number twice, it will erase that number instead. Space in a selected square erases all pencil marks.
Pressing M will fill in a full set of pencil marks in every square that does not have a main digit in it.
The game pays no attention to pencil marks, so exactly what you use them for is up to you: you can use them as reminders that a particular square needs to be re-examined once you know more about a particular number, or you can use them as lists of the possible numbers in a given square, or anything else you feel like.
As for the other similar games, the cursor keys can be used in conjunction with the digit keys to set numbers or pencil marks. Use the cursor keys to move a highlight around the grid, and type a digit to enter it in the highlighted square. Pressing return toggles the highlight into a mode in which you can enter or remove pencil marks.
(All the actions described in common-actions in the SGT puzzles docs
are also available.)
These parameters are available from the Custom... option on the
Type menu.
Grid size
Size of grid in squares (not counting the pure clue lines at the left and the top). The grid size can be between 3 and 12.
Variant
In addition to the Normal variant, there are two variations that can be selected: With Odd/even restriction, every other square must be odd (lighter background shade) and every other even (darker shade). With the variant No same combinations, no two sums can be made up of the same set of numbers. The solution is selected so that this condition will have to be explicitly considered to be able to solve the puzzle. This variant is highly recommended! It makes the puzzle more interesting by adding non-local constraints to it.
Difficulty
You can select (approximate) difficulty levels from Trivial to Extreme. In Trivial there is essentially in each step at least one sequence that is determined given the previous inputs, whereas in Extreme you typically will have to guess and backtrack. Somewhere in between is usually most fun.
Maximum value
Specifies the highest number allowed in the squares. The maximum can vary between 5 and 20.