Windoku
An alternate name for Hyper Sudoku — the 9×9 Sudoku variant with four extra 3×3 regions overlaid on the grid. The original Dutch name from NRC Handelsblad.
Windoku is the original Dutch name for the puzzle now more commonly called Hyper Sudoku in English-language puzzle communities. Both names refer to the same variant: a 9×9 Sudoku with four extra 3×3 regions overlaid on the grid, each carrying the standard digit-uniqueness rule.
The variant first appeared in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad in the mid-1990s, originally under the name NRC Sudoku. Windoku — referencing the visual resemblance of the four hyper regions to the blades of a wind turbine viewed head-on — emerged as the international label and remained the dominant name in continental European puzzle publications. The English-speaking puzzle press began using Hyper Sudoku in the late 2000s, drawing on the mathematical hyper- prefix to signal the variant's extra constraint dimension.
The two names are interchangeable. Search engines treat them as synonyms. Most puzzle publications pick one based on house style. Sudoku Mountain uses Hyper Sudoku as the primary label and notes Windoku as the synonym throughout the educational content.
For the variant's mechanical details, see the Hyper Sudoku entry. For the publishing history, see a short history of Windoku.
See also
- Hyper Sudoku— A Sudoku variant with four extra 3×3 regions overlaid on the standard grid, each obeying the uniqueness rule. Also called Windoku in continental European communities.
- Hyper region— One of the four extra 3×3 regions in a Hyper Sudoku (Windoku). Each region carries the same digit-uniqueness rule as a row, column, or standard 3×3 box.
- Hyper-only cell— A Hyper Sudoku (Windoku) deduction: a cell where row, column, and standard box together leave multiple candidates, and the hyper region alone forces the digit.
- Hyper pair— A naked pair where both cells lie in the same hyper region of a Hyper Sudoku (Windoku). Eliminates the two pair digits from every other cell of that region.
Read more
- A short history of Windoku
Where Windoku (the original Dutch name for Hyper Sudoku) came from, how it spread, and why it's quietly maintained a thirty-year following in puzzle publishing.
- The rules of Hyper Sudoku
Hyper Sudoku — also known as Windoku — is classic Sudoku with four extra 3×3 regions overlaid on the grid. Each of the four hyper regions obeys the uniqueness rule.