Sudoku V1.12
Posted by colin on October 9th, 2005
Direct Link : Sudoku
Publisher : Master Mobile Solutions
Price : $14.95
Rating : 9 out of 10
Do you Sudoku? If you haven’t heard of the new puzzle craze that’s sweeping the nation, then you sure are missing out on a great way to whittle away the hours.
Wikipedia describes Sudoku thus:
“Sudoku is a logic-based placement puzzle. The aim of the puzzle is to enter a number, usually from 1 through 9, in each cell of a grid, most frequently a 9x9 grid made up of 3x3 subgrids (called “regions”), starting with various numerals given in some cells (the “givens”)”
You can read the full Wikipedia entry here.
Although the rules seem deceptively simple, the game takes a while to get into, if you haven’t played this kind of puzzle before, your perseverance is greatly rewarded.
I first came across Sudoku puzzles in the newspaper, but didn’t pay them much attention. It was only when my boss mentioned them, that my interest was piqued again. I did a search on the net to find something I could play on my Dell Axim X50v and didn’t find much choice, however the program I found is in a word outstanding.
Sudoku from Master Mobile Solutions is truly a excellent implementation. With 6 levels of difficulty, there is something for everyone. My stats so far are as follows:
Simple - Completed 7 - Best Time 00:08:06
Easy - Completed 2 - Best Time 00:08:08
Medium - Completed 3 - Best Time 00:13:55
Hard - Completed 1 - Best Time 00:23:10
Very Hard - Completed 0
Sudoku Master - Completed 0 (no surprise there)
That’s not to say I’ve only played 13 games, cos I’ve played many more than that, but so far I’ve only completed the 13 as described above. In my own defense though, I am trying to stick to the harder levels, only dipping back into the easier levels to boost my confidence.
As well as the traditional Sudoku variants, there are also picture variants, but I’m quite happy to stick to the traditional kind at the moment.
The play area is just what you’d expect from a Sudoku puzzle, but you have many options to change the look, by selecting different number styles. Me personally, I’m using the “Plain Shadowed” number style, but there are another 9 more colorful options to choose from.
The play itself is very intuitive. Click on the square in which you wish to select a number and a small grid will appear with the 9 numbers to choose from as well as a color selector, where you can select the color of the number you are placing. This is particularly useful when you are playing the more advanced games and you want to make a string of guess moves, to test the waters, knowing that you can undo what you did by removing all the numbers of the color you specified.
You can also switch the mode of the grid by clicking on the little grid icon that appears in the selection screen. This allows you to select up to 9 number for placement, they appear as if in a small grid in the number space you selected, you can see what I mean by looking at the picture on the left. This can aid in the playing of the game, but personally I find it a bit confusing.
No review can really give this game the justice it deserves. Since purchasing this game, I have found several other versions and have indeed tried them, but I much prefer the MasterSoft version. Be careful when choosing a Sudoku game to purchase. A few of them I’ve seen only give you a limited number of puzzles to solve. This version however generates games on the fly, which gives you millions of combination to play at a skill level you specify. You can also enter your own puzzle, which means you can play the puzzle printed in newspapers and magazines.
Conclusion : This is one game I don’t want to be without on my Pocket PC. So much so that I actually have the cab file on the compact flash memory, so should I have a major crash, I can at least reinstall, without having to return to my main PC. A definite buy.