Good Sudoku+ (2021) [+]
Apr 30 2024
Good Sudoku+ is the Apple Arcade version of Good Sudoku by Zach Gage ($5). Sudoku is a numbers puzzle game where you have nine 3x3 houses arranged in a 3x3 pattern. The puzzle starts with some numbers filled in and the objective is to place the numbers 1-9 in each house such that no number repeats in a house, nor in any row of the whole puzzle, nor in any column of the whole puzzle.
In play Good Sudoku+ has many conveniences:
You can manually put in the possible numbers (in grey) in each cell or you can auto-note and have all possible numbers filled in for all cells. Although part of pencil and paper sudoku filling in all possible values is both quite simple and quite boring and auto-note easily saves you 10 minutes.
You can mark possible numbers in blue. The purpose of this is to show when only two cells can have a given value and it makes it visually distinctive.
When you put in a final value Good Sudoku+ automatically fills in final values in the same house (e.g. you put in a 5 that means that other cell with a 4 or 5 must be a 4 and then the third cell with a 4 or 5 or 7 must be a 7 etc.)
You can tap a number in the numeric keypad and it will highlight any squares where that number is a possibility. It makes it very easy to then see if there are only two of a number in a cell or if a house has that number and no other house has that number in the same row or column. Also easy to see if the number is a house singleton.
There is an unlimited undo and more importantly if you've gotten to where it is impossible to solve (you can tell if a cell has no possible numbers) you can Recover Board which does undo until the puzzle is in a finish-able state.
You can ask for a hint, which reduces your score. Puzzle score is time to finish (hints reduce that score) times the puzzle difficulty -- there are five difficulty levels though puzzles in each level vary in difficulty and have different difficulty scores. The great thing about a hint is that it tells you what rule is being used and based on that you can do the number elimination yourself or then go ahead and have the hint do it for you.
To go along with the above conveniences there is an excellent help system. You can learn how to play and how the notes work. Then you can go through each of the 22 techniques used to eliminate possibilities. Each technique is explained and you can practice as much as you want. I've only learned the first 12+ techniques which is good enough to, with difficulty, finish Pro puzzles (fourth highest difficulty).
There are three play modes. Good is pretty much as described. Arcade you have three 4-piece hearts; each hint removes a piece and at the end each full heart gives you bonus points. Eternal you also have the three hearts but now at the end of a puzzle you gain a heart piece and carry over your hearts to the next puzzle and the puzzles slowly get harder.
There is a Create mode to make your own puzzles.
There are three Daily puzzles. Good and Arcade as in the game modes and Classic which doesn't do number highlighting nor auto-complete house. Daily puzzles start out easy on Monday and get harder each day until two Pro puzzles on Saturday and Sunday.
In summary this is a great Sudoku app. If I had started with Sudoku by MobilityWare+ I would have quit long ago. Good Sudoku+ takes away the tedious parts of Sudoku and adds highlighting so you can concentrate on the fun part of Sudoku.
In play Good Sudoku+ has many conveniences:
You can manually put in the possible numbers (in grey) in each cell or you can auto-note and have all possible numbers filled in for all cells. Although part of pencil and paper sudoku filling in all possible values is both quite simple and quite boring and auto-note easily saves you 10 minutes.
You can mark possible numbers in blue. The purpose of this is to show when only two cells can have a given value and it makes it visually distinctive.
When you put in a final value Good Sudoku+ automatically fills in final values in the same house (e.g. you put in a 5 that means that other cell with a 4 or 5 must be a 4 and then the third cell with a 4 or 5 or 7 must be a 7 etc.)
You can tap a number in the numeric keypad and it will highlight any squares where that number is a possibility. It makes it very easy to then see if there are only two of a number in a cell or if a house has that number and no other house has that number in the same row or column. Also easy to see if the number is a house singleton.
There is an unlimited undo and more importantly if you've gotten to where it is impossible to solve (you can tell if a cell has no possible numbers) you can Recover Board which does undo until the puzzle is in a finish-able state.
You can ask for a hint, which reduces your score. Puzzle score is time to finish (hints reduce that score) times the puzzle difficulty -- there are five difficulty levels though puzzles in each level vary in difficulty and have different difficulty scores. The great thing about a hint is that it tells you what rule is being used and based on that you can do the number elimination yourself or then go ahead and have the hint do it for you.
To go along with the above conveniences there is an excellent help system. You can learn how to play and how the notes work. Then you can go through each of the 22 techniques used to eliminate possibilities. Each technique is explained and you can practice as much as you want. I've only learned the first 12+ techniques which is good enough to, with difficulty, finish Pro puzzles (fourth highest difficulty).
There are three play modes. Good is pretty much as described. Arcade you have three 4-piece hearts; each hint removes a piece and at the end each full heart gives you bonus points. Eternal you also have the three hearts but now at the end of a puzzle you gain a heart piece and carry over your hearts to the next puzzle and the puzzles slowly get harder.
There is a Create mode to make your own puzzles.
There are three Daily puzzles. Good and Arcade as in the game modes and Classic which doesn't do number highlighting nor auto-complete house. Daily puzzles start out easy on Monday and get harder each day until two Pro puzzles on Saturday and Sunday.
In summary this is a great Sudoku app. If I had started with Sudoku by MobilityWare+ I would have quit long ago. Good Sudoku+ takes away the tedious parts of Sudoku and adds highlighting so you can concentrate on the fun part of Sudoku.