The Master's Path: 27 sudoku variants and 81 stars

By Miguel Arechaga

MundoSudoku has 27 different sudokus: the classic one and 26 variants. The trouble with having that many is that most people play two or three and never find out the rest exist. The Master's Path is the map that puts them all in front of you, with a clear target on each.

Three stars per variant

Each of the 27 has three stars, earned like this:

• ⭐ No hints — finish that variant at least once without asking for a single hint.
• ⭐ No mistakes — finish it at least once without placing a single wrong number.
• ⭐ Good time — beat the target time shown on its card.

27 variants times 3 stars is 81 targets. The number isn't an accident: it's the number of cells in a sudoku, and on screen they're laid out in a 9 × 9 grid.

You don't need all three in one game

This is the most common question, so plainly: each star counts on its own. You can earn "no hints" in one game, "no mistakes" in another three weeks later, and the time one in a fourth.

It could have been the other way round — all three in a single game — and it would have been far more demanding. We chose not to: 81 small targets keep you playing, while 27 brutal ones leave the map empty for months, which is exactly the opposite of what it's for.

And they're never lost

A star you've earned is yours for good. You can play that same variant tomorrow with six hints and fourteen mistakes: the star stays lit.

It's the same idea already applied to streak achievements, which look at your all-time best streak rather than the current one, so breaking a thirty-day streak doesn't erase the badge for having had it.

The target times

The third star needs a number, and that number is shown on every card. It isn't a secret goal: if you didn't know where the bar was, you couldn't go for it.

• 4×4 sudoku — 1:30 · 6×6 — 3:00
• Classic — 8:00
• 9×9 single-constraint variants (diagonal, even, odd, windoku, anti-king, kropki, XV, clones, renban, thermometer…) — 10:00, and 11:00 for arrow and ratio
• Jigsaw — 13:00
• Killer, little killer, sandwich and X-Sums — 15:00
• 16×16 — 40:00

They're deliberately generous. A target nobody reaches doesn't motivate, it puts people off. If they turn out to be too soft over time they can only go down, never up — raising one would take the star away from someone who already had it.

The daily sudoku counts as classic

It's the same board and the same rules, so those games count towards the classic stars. If you're the sort who drops in for the daily sudoku and not much else, your Path already has something lit without you doing anything special.

Games too fast to be real earn no star

Just as they don't enter the ranking. A 9×9 sudoku solved in twelve seconds isn't a record, it's something else, and the system treats it as what it is.

Where to start

Look at the map and find a variant that's one star short: that's usually the cheapest push. If everything is at zero, start with one you've never touched — the screen suggests one for you.

And if you'd rather understand how they differ first, here's the run-through of sudoku variants. For the time star, these advanced techniques apply to all of them.