Some cultures simply produce more puzzles than others. Puzzles are very popular in Japan, and Japan has produced more puzzle types than just Sudoko’s. Kaikuro’s are another Japanese invention, and the “newest” trend are Futoshikis, which are also called Hutosiki. I am not sure about the Japanese history, but the English newspaper The Guardian introduced it in Europe in 2006.
Futoshiki are Latin Squares, just as Sudoku’s. A handy size is 5×5. Every row and column contains the 5 digits 1-5 each exactly once. In addition, The > (greater than) and < (less than) are used to give relations between the numbers.
Here are three examples:
1)
| 1 | ||||||||
| 2 | ||||||||
| v | ||||||||
| 3 | < | 4 | ||||||
| 5 | 2 | < | ||||||
| 4 | < |
I feel you shouldn’t need the solution, but if you are not sure you can check it at 71
2)
| 1 | ||||||||
| V | ||||||||
| V | V | |||||||
| 3 | 4 | |||||||
| 3 | ||||||||
| V | ||||||||
| > | 4 |
Again you can check your solution at nr 21
3)
| 1 | 4 | |||||||
| > | ||||||||
| < | ||||||||
| V | ||||||||
| 4 | 5 | |||||||
| 4 | 3 | < |
This solution is at solution 61
You can expect more of these puzzles in one of our e-books