Daily Sudoku Herald

"Every morning, a grid. And every morning, a different rule."

Someone had to put sudoku back in the newspaper. The Daily Sudoku looks like the puzzle page of a broadsheet printed for you alone: the grain of the paper, lines drawn with a nib, digits laid down in ballpoint. Beneath the styling, one simple and formidable idea — the rule changes every day.

THE IDEA
One day, a classic sudoku to warm up. The next, diagonals. Then killer cages, irregular regions, thermometers. Five variants take turns across the editions, and the difficulty follows the rhythm of the week: gentle on Monday, stern by the weekend. Every grid carries its issue number, like a newspaper — and it is the same grid for every player, everywhere, on the same day.

Never played a killer or a thermo? A clear rule card appears before each variant and stays available at any moment. That is what makes the exotic rules approachable — and what makes you come back for the next one.

WHAT WE LIKED
— How legible the constraints stay: cages, thermometers and regions never obscure a digit.
— The streak on the masthead: your days in a row are printed at the top of the paper, and the archive keeps your best run. That is what brings you back.
— The ranks, from Apprentice to Editor-in-Chief, which never go down — not even the day a streak breaks.
— The emoji result summary, copied in one tap, ready to paste wherever you like.
— The archive: the last 60 editions stay open. A missed day is never lost.

IN DETAIL
• Daily puzzle: classic, X, killer, jigsaw, thermometer
• Free play: every variant in three difficulties, with best times
• Pencil notes, undo, a counted number of hints, timer with pause
• Autosave: close the app, come back, your grid is waiting
• Day streak and best streak, tracked on the home page
• A "night paper" dark mode that follows your device setting
• Hardware keyboard support, careful VoiceOver labelling cell by cell

SPECIAL MENTION
No account to create, nothing to configure. Grids are generated on your device — a game plays out even with no connection, on the subway or on a plane.

VERDICT
A daily appointment that fits in five minutes or thirty, depending on the edition. You come in for a grid, you stay for the streak.

See you tomorrow, for the next edition.