Hi Kira,  
 
We allow other sites to sue our code to create picture sudokus on their own site. The circle / octagon one which you are referring to is one of those and we have no control over the images they use.  
 
Best Wishes,  
Simon

Mike, weren't you called Susan Yesterday?

for your site

'how to solve sudoku', you've probably figured it out by now anyway, but please go to 'free sudoku for your site' link at the top of the page and follow the instructions there.

Shape sudoku

Kira - the shape sudoku on this site has only straight lines.

Grid size

I did look at being able to change the grid size at one stage but a smaller grid is too easy, and in a larger grid, the pictures get too small. So the grid size is 'hard wired', and changing it would add a surprising amount of complexity.  
 
For a fee, I could make you a custom version, but it would be quite a lot of work, and I couldn't do it in the time frame.  
 
Best Wishes,  
Simon

Hi Jo,  
 
1) Upload some pictures to a photo sharing site, like photobucket.com  
2) Once you've uploaded them all - go to this page and follow the onscreen instructions:  
 
http://www.picturesudoku.com/custom.htm

Difficulty level

Do you want harder puzzles, or easier puzzles? (i.e. how would you rate the average puzzle here in your scale?)  
 
The trouble is, Sudoku's here are randomly generated; some are hard, some are easy.  
 
From a given starting point, we can make it easier, but making it harder is very difficult.

I'm timing you...

I've just started timing how long it takes to complete a puzzle, together with browser infomation, etc.  
 
This might make for some interesting stats:  
 
Are users of a particular setup cleverer than others?  
Which site has the cleverest users?  
 
etc

Update

* Adding the stylesheet amendment seems to have made the IE bug go away. By that, I don't mean it's died, I mean, it goes on to the next site you visit instead of this one. Only Microsoft...  
 
* The program makes a sudoku grid around 99 times out of a hundred. It can time out if you get an unlucky random combination, and you have a slow machine.

Big photo selection

Pictures are now twice as large in the selection grid, by placing it in a layer above the main puzzle grid. (If that's Greek to you, don't worry about it)  
 
Thanks to Quirksmode for a few genius lines of script that proved very useful for this.

Interface?

Puzzle Lover,
It's the piece you click that gets placed. Is that not obvious?  
 
Maybe it's not working for you. What do you see when you mouse over an empty square?

Internet Explorer Trailing

It turns out that we have found a bug in internet explorer. I can't find anything about it online, so it seems it's a new one.  
 
If you scroll the page, once the picture sudoku has loaded, you'll see it leaves a trail, rendering the puzzle unviewable, and unusable. Fair enough, you may say, that's jsut Picture Sudoku's dodgy programming you may say. so you type in another URL in the address bar. But behold, the next page you view will then have the same issue, as will any page, on any site that you view afterward. What witchcraft is this?  
 
<rant>The randomness of when microsoft products do something unexpected is apalling. It's not just Internet Explorer, I've been frustrated by weird bugs in XL, ASP, and of course, Windows itself.</rant>  
 
So what is the fix?  
 
Well, I'm working on it, but in the mean time, I heartily recommend downloading Firefox. It works, consistently and reliably.

Flawed, but functional

Another two day project that lasted two weeks, but finaly, here it is.  
 
* The program doesn't always create a puzzle at the first attempt.  
* Grids are not symmetrical. When they were, there were a few too many 'clues' given. The starting grid is created by starting with grid of very few numbers, and then trying to solve it using 'easy' methods. If it can't solve it, it adds in another clue.  
* It's a bit easy for some - I'll make it harder in due course. If you add it to your site, you will automatically get the increased difficulty levels when they become available.  
 
Enjoy!  

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