There's a new craze in the world of paper logic puzzles: taking after the metroidvania genre of videogames, ambitious creators are making huge, sprawling sudoku puzzles that you slowly uncover and learn new mechanics as you explore. These giant logic grids start as mostly covered up grey "fog of war" tiles with sections revealing themselves and opening up as you fill in the puzzle and place numbers correctly.
Complicated, multi-layered sudoku puzzles with many overlapping mechanics and rules have been around a while, but these giant, sprawling explore-a-map style endeavors first showed up last year with the release of Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair from creator Skeptical Mario. The puzzle is shaped like a typical metroidvania map, but the whole thing starts greyed-out besides a tiny little starting area off on the far left side. Jumping in here you'll need to chip away and figure out where to place a few digits to start revealing more of the map, slowly adding to your list of learned rules and hopefully filling up your quest progress log.
As is tradition in the world of paper puzzles, these games are free to play and make use of in-browser applications built for solving grid-based logic puzzles. You'll mark squares and enter values and keep notes just like solving a standard sudoku, but the map will also dynamically respond to your correct placements. These games also feature "boss fight" mini puzzles which are found within the larger game, taking you to a separate smaller "room" where you'll combat a foe with, presumably, its own unique rules and story segments.
After Sudokuvania made a splash in the online puzzle community, a designer known as The M used that inspiration to build a new entry in the genre, naturally claiming the other half of the genre name and calling their creation Super Sudokoid: Final Transmission. Only a few months later they've put out a sequel, this one soaking up the attention of logic puzzle fans since it debuted a couple weeks ago: Super Sudokoid: Dark Inversion is now the 3rd major entry in this new niche of mega-exploration-puzzles and it shakes up the formula a bit in terms of map structure while retaining the overarching ideas.
Edit: A few people who have read the article suggested that I add mention of relative difficulty levels, and this seems like a good place to do it: the original Sudokuvania is known to be pretty darn challenging to get through, but the first Super Sudokoid game was made to be a bit more approachable, so that's probably a great starting point if you're not quite a sudoku expert.
Check out the links throughout the article above to find our database pages for these puzzles which will guide you through to the sites where you can play them right in your browser. If you do get sucked in, keep your ears open for news about the upcoming Sudokuvania 2: Lineage of Logic, which will apparently feature all-new systems like an inventory(!) and has a small prologue preview available to play now. Joining our Discord and heading to the dedicated #paper-puzzles channel is a great way to find some community to discuss the games or get some help if you're stuck.
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