#sudoku game

[lunaleee22]

NYT Sudoku offers daily puzzles that challenge your logic and problem-solving skills. With varying difficulty levels, it's perfect for both beginners and experts. Enjoy a clean, user-friendly interface while keeping your mind sharp with each puzzle. For more information you can visit: https://nytsudoku.net/

[wirewitchviolet]

Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair is one of the most impressive works of pure game design I have ever seen.

Before I say anything else, I am going to be talking about a game that is VERY new and has pretty terrible search optimization, so in case this blog post somehow came up near the top of results for someone, here is the as-of-this-writing-current 1.02 release, and for good measure, here is the official FAQ page with the full version history, any future patches, and an FAQ for some of the more confusingly worded stuff that crops up later into the game. Now on with the praise-heaping!

So... Sudokuvania pretty much exactly what the name implies. It's a -vania, that is, a Metroidvania, and specifically one styled after one of the ones that's actually in the latter Castlevania series so that naming convention actually makes sense. Exploring a big castle, fighting bosses, getting various items letting you explore more areas, maybe breaking out of the borders of the map to find cool secrets here and there.

Also, it's a variant of sudoku. And I don't mean someone sat down with some videogame designing toolkit and made a videogame where some of the gameplay is solving logic puzzles on a grid you fill with numbers (I mean, I guess technically I do). I mean that link to the game I posted takes you to a website with a little built in standard app for solving sudoku puzzles and weird variations thereof, and the particular puzzle it's pointing to, somehow, manages to have a big map to explore, boss fights, special items that give you new powers, NPCs, and for good measure, fog of war. It is, again, an absolutely amazing hacky thing and I'm flabbergasted at how well executed it is. Now you're probably wondering how that even works, and that's why I'm writing this big gushy blog post. Here's what you see when you first load it up:

You're going to notice there is some absurdly small and kind of important text you can't possibly read, and that's because again, this is kind of a hacky thing this site so was not designed for. So it's kind of annoying but if you access this through the proper introduction page, it'll explain that the first thing you need to do is click the little gear icon in the floating tool palette, toggle on Visuals: Draw arrows above lines and Disable emoji replacement, then scroll all the way down to Experimental and turn on Test Large Puzzle UI. That enables you to zoom in and out with the scroll wheel, and right-click drag to pan around. It's... a little clunky because again, this website was NOT built for this, but tada, now you can zoom in, read the text, and start solving at a reasonable size. Then there's a couple gameplay concepts it does its best to explain, but... most people I've shown it to myself included needed extra explanation of a couple important early concepts. So let me just do a little color coding here to make this easier to get...

The map is not, in fact, one great big grid. It's 9 squares (and one rectangle that's not quite square over on the east side). Each of these is its own 9x9 Sudoku grid (well, the starting one is 6x6 and has those mutant 2x3 cells instead of the usual 3x3, and there's that weird eastern mutant). If you're solving stuff in one square, you completely ignore everything outside that square, except for where they overlap, in which case the numbers you're placing have to fit for both puzzles. So if we look at the light grey/green intersection on the left, those three overlap cells respectively can't be 4 6 or 5 (and whatever use you deduce in the grey box, but the pure green cells completely ignore all that, you're just focusing on the green 9x9 (which is going to have the overlap as a starting point, naturally).

The next bit that through me off a ton is the way fog of war works. Let me reasonably zoom in and do a little solving here. One second...

Here's the whole starting area all marked up to hell like you do when you're kinda bad at Sudoku and don't know how to spot a starting point. Penciling in little numbers in the corners. You'll also notice a that... most of the map is covered in this dark grey fog of war. A lot of in-game stuff mentions that you shouldn't go clicking out into the fog of war, because it'll show you names of later areas and preview certain special rules and all, but that's talking about clicking WAY off from what you can see. You are 100% allowed to solve stuff out in the fog of war, and it's pretty stingy about de-fogging. Don't go blindly guessing because then you can maybe end up sequence breaking but... yeah. Sorry I'm spoiling the Front Gate, it's basically the tutorial though. Anyway, first move is obvious, only one place we can put that 6, and suddenly...

Tada, important space so it rewarded us with a little fog clearing. You can also see that this will handily point out stuff in your pencil notes that can't be true, but only if A- it's untrue for standard sudoku reasons not special stuff, and B- it's not in the fog of war (or on the other side of some. You also maybe noticed that weird green thing under that first hint 6? That's something we need a tool for, you don't worry about it until you have that tool. Solving this out some more...

Little more de-fogging, both of the puzzle area and the margins where we're getting new information on playing the game in general. Now right here if you're observant, you'll see that bottom right corner has to be a 6. It's out in the fog of war, but you can mark it if you know what it is. And...

I was cropping it out before but the big purple number pad is always floating off to the side there, and the green text box over it, which among other things has an area name and flavor text for whatever grid you're in. This won't ALWAYS happen when you place numbers in fog of war, but there was a trigger on this 6 to load in a little piece of the first real area, and oh hey, we unlocked "Guide THERMO!" That's our first tool, and it's described up in the upper left.

So tada, from here out in addition to standard sudoku stuff, you've got these "bronze Guide THERMOs" that show up here and there and have this extra rule. You basically never get free numbers in the grid past the Front Gate, it's all slow-marching into new areas using what you're bringing in plus some easy starting examples of how your new tools work, plowing on from there. The fog of war is pretty stingy but it keeps you focused. You'll also notice the rules here mention bosses, all the 9x9 ones have one. It's clearly marked, and you should PROBABLY expose it from the fog first, but any time you're in the area really you, if you scroll around in that green text box or hit the rules button when in a grid, there's a link you can click to go fight it. The boss fights are all separate puzzles (site's good about auto-saving so don't freak out if it takes over your tab and you have to hit back after). These are very themey, sometimes VERY evil (especially boss #1, feels a bit overtuned) self-contained 9x9 puzzles, probably using the same tools their area is themed around, and I don't think there's a single pre-placed number in any of them. Beat the boss puzzle, it gives you some flavor text and a number to place in its cell back in the main castle puzzle, plug that in and you're always going to unlock something cool. Usually a new item, sometimes other weird stuff, and it just goes on like that.

Don't expect to be able to fully solve a given grid in one go. It's a Metroidvania, backtracking is expected. Even if you've fully de-fogged a grid, later stuff might reward you by straight up adding new symbols you couldn't see before or doing weird stuff with fog. It IS all solvable with pure logic... but there ARE a few places that do that thing I hate in tougher sudokus where you just kinda have to pencil in in a different faction and explore 2 possible futures for a bit to see which eventually contradicts itself. And of course the last couple of grids do some really evil mind-bendy stuff.

But yeah aside from a couple gripes where the way a tool works could maybe be a lot more grammatically clear, that first boss being a lot to deal with as you're first getting your feet wet, and a particularly cruel twist later on, I don't really have any complaints. Well, it might need a cool soundtrack. Maybe play some Castlevania music. Maybe switch it up for some real proper boss music when you're nearing victory.

Again I am just completely blown away that someone made something so meaty in a standard sudoku site's normal UI, and really managed to make it feel so much like playing a DS Castlevania. Some real proof of game design being an art form here. And now you too can just completely lose a day or two to it!

[limitlesslivingacademy]

Crack the Sudoku Code: Can You Solve the Ultimate Puzzle?

[ddeck]

recreation time on kamino

[dolphinrostrums]

hot take: sudoku isn't a math game or puzzle. it is a logic puzzle based on finding the correct combination of symbols. it would still functionally be the same game if you used different symbols (letters, emojis, hell--even colors)

a lot of people avoid sudoku because they're intimidated by the numbers with the assumption that it's a math game, but the numbers are just placeholder, easily-recognizable symbols. the basis of the game would be the exact same if it used anything else, and we think a lot more people would be able to enjoy sudoku if they were able to get passed the gut reaction of "oh fuck! numbers! math!"

obviously, not everyone would like it even with that, but we hear a lot of people go "oh, i wouldn't be any good at sudoku, i'm awful with/hate math haha" and we constantly have to resist the urge to go onto our "sudoku contains almost 0 math in its basic premise and you could make functionally the same game without any numbers just by changing the symbols used" spiel

[lesiasmadness]

I think as impressed as he was with Augustus Reinhold at first, Layton does NOT enjoy the parallels

[apollos-polls]

Anon requested this to be posted without the ask!

[sarnai4]

Gamer Gods

(Ares and Athena are sitting on a sofa. Ares frowns at his controller.)

Ares: Ath, can we play a different game? You've beat me at Connect 4 for 100 times in a row.

Athena (taunting): I don't see why 101 times would make a difference then.

Ares (pouting): I don't like this game anymore.

Athena: What if we played Sudoku?

Ares: No! That's worse! Let's play Mortal Kombat or Soul Calibur.

Athena (cringing): I don't think that's a good idea.

Ares (grinning): Finally afraid you'll lose?

Athena (frowning): You know what, fine. Let's do this.

(Several hours later in immortal time, Zeus walks into the room.)

Zeus (excited): Ooh! A fighting game. I want in.

(Athena sends Ares a look.)

Athena: It's not that fun, Dad.

Zeus: Aw, I bet it's great! I can't believe Ares is actually doing pretty well. I'll play against him.

Ares (ghostly pale): Huh?

(The next game, he and Zeus are on the sofa. The screen shows that Zeus wins.)

Zeus (eyeing him): That's the 3rd time in a row. I feel like you're going easy on me.

Ares (nervously): What? No, of course not.

Zeus (warningly): Ares, I want to really play. You were beating Athena. Give me a challenge.

Ares: A-are you sure?

Zeus: Yes.

Athena (mouthing from behind Zeus): Don't do it.

Zeus (eyes narrowing): Ares, that's an order.

(The next game begins with Ares shaking. It ends with the screen telling Zeus that he lost.)

Zeus (lightning sparkling on him):...

(Ares and Athena make a dash for the door before Zeus can get up.)

Ares (still running): We'll play Sudoku next time.

[lambment]

You broke me down, your comics and AU are so good I bought the game. I’m literally starting it up right now as I type this. You did this.

All according to sudoku…

[monkeyslunch]

Starship Salvage is a new game where you can play solo or with a friend to collect the most salvage from wrecked spaceships and become the Super Salvager!

Available now on Itch!

Gain advantages in solo mode depending on how well you perform. This is a game of both chance and skill.

Explore four derelict spaceships of varying size and difficulty:

Dottie

Aegis

Ark

Atmos V

Includes both Starship Salvage (single-player) and Starship Salvage Duo (two-player)!

Get it!

[atelierlili]

Sometimes I stare at the wall and am thankful that Suzzane Collins never made Katniss explicitly choose between Peeta and Prim at the other’s expense in the story. I don’t think I’d be able to cope with any situation that would have arise from that choice.

[kat4884]

i don’t get how people remember all these chess moves bro

like in class, some guys were playing chess and one of them said, “oh you’re trying the sicilian defense” or some shit like that

LIKE WHAT THE FUCK IS THE SICILIAN DEFENSE

ARE WE JUST MAKING UP NAMES NOW???

this is why i prefer sudoku

[gretheresa]

September Wrap Up☕🌫️

[gameo-archive]

"and my last one came in. Date ideas, fave Charles lines, Edwin's hobbies, more playlist? #dbdtwt #DeadBoyDetectives #cameo"

If you're willing, would you please share more of Edwin's playlist songs?

Edwin's hobbies?

Future date ideas besides a walk?

How did Edwin learn magic and supernatural lore for cases?

Favourite Charles lines?

George's imitation of Charles is *chef's kiss* and he's just so pleased with himself:

[triassictriserratops]

In case you haven't heard, the NYT Tech Guild is on strike and trying to get a fair contract.

They are asking us to support their picket line by NOT using the NYT Games or Cooking Apps.

More information on how to support the strike below.

FOLLOW/SHARE

If you would like to follow their strike efforts you can find updates on Instagram or TikTok

DON'T CROSS PICKET LINES

They have been kind enough to create a Strike Friendly version of some of the NYT Games that we are allowed to play. They've even included some recipes for NYT Cooking users! You can enjoy them here!

DONATE

If you find yourself able to financially support the strike fund, they are accepting donations here.

[farolero-posting]

I find it hilarious that I've been in bigger fandoms for communities with much more content and yet my autistic brain latched onto a game that you're only meant to play once* and beat in maybe 8 hours, and it's stayed strong for 2 whole years. Hi. I didn't choose this.