Calling all masterminds young or old! Sudoku just got a colorful makeover. Forget numbers one through nine, it’s all about six colors and 3-D cubes now.
Color Cube Sudoku, by Thinkfun, is the next head-scratching, brain-bending,“I’m getting very frustrated” game, that you won’t want to put down until you solve. It’s a game of thought, strategy, and patience. Fans of the Rubik’s Cube or Sudoku will want to take a crack at this puzzle.
The one-player game includes a holding tray and nine color cubes, each with six sides. To best picture what a Color Cube looks like, think of a scaled-down version of the Rubik’s cube. Each side of the cube has four colors on it, so in total there are 24 squares of color per cube. Unlike a Rubik’s Cube, these cubes do not have moveable sides.
The objective of the game is to flip and rearrange the nine Color Cubes into a three-by-three square so that each of the six colors appears once in every row and column. It’s just rearranging colors—easy, right?
According to the instruction manual, there are 2,641,540,224 different ways to position the nine color cubes. But from all those possibilities, only 665,856 will produce a solved puzzle. Be sure to toss the cubes around once you take them out of the packaging, as they are already placed in a winning pattern. Beware, that might be the last time you ever see them like that again….bwahaha.
While this game is designed for children ages 8 and up, it’s a great game of thought for adults, too. After years of feeling defeated by my childhood Rubik’s Cube, I thought I’d try to redeem myself with Color Cube Sudoku. So far, not great — I’m still waiting for my “eureka” moment. Yet, the game is addicting and will instill a sense of determination in players to crack the code. It’s also a good game to play in order to unplug from all our electronic gizmos and gadgets and engage in some critical thinking.
For those who have solved the puzzle (teach me your ways, please!) the instruction booklet offers bonus pattern challenges, such as the “No Diagonal,” “the “Big X,” or the Long Knight’s Path.” Luckily this is a timeless game, where players can try to solve a little bit at a time.
Are you up for the challenge? Good luck, grasshoppers!
