Nikoli (publisher)

Nikoli Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 株式会社ニコリ, Hepburn: Kabushiki-gaisha, Nikori) is a Japanese publisher that specializes in games and, especially, logic puzzles. Nikoli is also the nickname of a quarterly magazine (whose full name is Puzzle Communication Nikoli) issued by the company in Tokyo.^[1] Nikoli was established in 1980,^[1] and became prominent worldwide with the popularity of Sudoku.

The name "Nikoli" comes from the racehorse who won the Irish 2,000 Guineas in 1980; the founder of Nikoli, Maki Kaji, was fond of horseracing and betting.^[2]

Nikoli's claim to fame is its vast library of "culture independent" puzzles. An example of a language/culture-dependent genre of puzzle would be the crossword, which relies on a specific language and alphabet. For this reason Nikoli's puzzles are often purely logical, and often numerical.

Nikoli's Sudoku, the most popular logic problem in Japan,^[3] was popularized in the English-speaking world in 2005, though that game has a history stretching back hundreds of years and across the globe.^[4]

The magazine has invented several new genres of puzzles, and introduced several new games to Japan.