Sudoku and Suko are both grid-based logic puzzles you solve by pure deduction, so solvers naturally wonder how alike they really are. The short answer: Suko is close to Sudoku. Below we lay out what the two share, where they part ways, and whether the skills you have built on Sudoku will carry over.
- Grid: 3×3
- Closeness to Sudoku: Close
What is Suko?
A 3×3 grid of 1-9 where four circled sums cover overlapping quads of cells and coloured groups carry their own totals. Here are the rules in full:
- Place the digits 1-9, each once, in the nine cells.
- Each of the four circles equals the sum of the four cells around it.
- The cells are also split into coloured groups, each with a given total.
See a Suko grid
Suko puts 1-9 in a 3×3 grid, with a circled number at each inner corner giving the sum of its four surrounding cells (colour groups add their own totals too). Here the top-left circle reads 12 - the sum of 1, 2, 4 and 5.
A corner circle (12) sums its four surrounding cells: 1 + 2 + 4 + 5.
Like its sibling Killer Sudoku in miniature, Suko is all about the combination reasoning of a cage - which digits add to this circle? Solve a few and Killer's cage sums feel easier.
What Suko shares with Sudoku
- The "distinct digits plus sum clues" idea is Killer Sudoku shrunk to nine cells.
- Solving means finding which digits fit each sum - Killer's combination logic exactly.
How Suko differs from Sudoku
- It is one 3×3 block, so there are no rows, columns or boxes - only the sums.
- All nine digits are used once across the grid, not once per line.
Do Sudoku skills transfer?
Like its sibling Sujiko, Suko drills the combination reasoning Killer Sudoku rewards - a quick way to sharpen "which digits add to this?" instincts.
Brush up on the technique that carries over: Killer Sudoku Combinations.
The verdict
Suko is another pocket Killer: overlapping sums and colour totals on a single 3×3 block.
Prefer to stay with Sudoku?
If Suko appeals, these Sudoku variants scratch the same itch and you can read up on each here:
Where to play it
If it was Sudoku you came for, the level is the choice that matters more than the variant - Suko and Sudoku part ways on the rules, but a Sudoku grid can be a two-minute warm-up or an hour of work depending on nothing but how much of it you are given.
Difficulty and type are two separate dials here: the type sets the extra rule, the level sets how much of the grid you start with. Easy Sudoku leaves 36 of the 81 cells filled, so there is always an obvious next move somewhere; Evil Sudoku leaves 23, with no easy moves at all. Take it at the gentler end while the pattern is still new, and move up once it stops being a fight.