Top Hat Puzzles

I recently came across a site that featured Top Hat Puzzles. Top Hat puzzles are a sudoku variation that involves a differently shaped grid. The grid is smaller and twisted 45 degrees. There are 22 squares in the grid and there are 12 internal areas of six squares each. The object, as with all sudoku puzzles, is to fill each internal area using each of the digits 1-6 exactly once. What is interesting about this puzzle is the layout of the internal areas. In a standard sudoku, each square is part of three internal areas: a row, a column, and an internal square. In this puzzle, some of the squares are a part of four internal areas, others are a part of two. I won’t post a puzzle here for copyright reasons, but if you’re curious about how this layout works, you can click over.

The puzzles are small, and can be solved quickly. It’s also interesting to note that the site’s author also seems to be working on two other sudoku variations. One is called sequential sudoku and the other five star sudoku. Links to drafts of these puzzles can be found at the bottom of the page.