Earlier this month, 36 sharp-witted high school students from around the globe stepped foot on the warm and breezy campus of ...

But, let me back up. Sudoku is a logic puzzle. You fill numbers into a grid, using deduction (or, failing that, plain old trial and error).

He has edited two new books on sudoku. "Sudoku is a puzzle with pure logic," Shortz says about the American invention. "It has a grid of 9-by-9 divided into nine 3-by-3 boxes.

Star Battle is an object placement puzzle (with some familiar features from more common puzzles like Sudoku and Battleships) that has its own intriguing logic to deduce. This week I've made two ...