The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Jo88]

Hi, here's a new site where you can play Sudoku. It has unlimited puzzles which means it generates puzzles at the click of a button. Also has 'solve' button and a 'hint' button. You can also enter a puzzle to solve.

Play Sudoku

Jo

[sky1201]

I found this great sudoku site, its called www.sudokuuniversity.com
It is so cool. It puts a new twist to solving sudoku puzzles. Check it out.

[Richard]

Since we're talking about new sites, mine has been up for a month now and is settling in. I'd love some feedback from sudoku fans so please, if you have time, do take a look and let me know what you think - it's called Strictly Sudoku. If feedback isn't appropriate for the group, please send me a private message or use the contact form on the website.

Thanks
Richard
Strictly Sudoku

[gfroyle]

I'd love some feedback from sudoku fans so please, if you have time, do take a look and let me know what you think -

Looks nice..

Neat interface with the ring selector; I personally would like an option to have the computer enter the initial pencil marks of allowed numbers, because it is tedious to enter those manually, and then have the pencil tool DELETE them... (but maybe it is there already - I haven't looked hard).

Free and not overly intrusive with the advertising.

The solver needs a way to enter an entire puzzle as a text string.. tedious to enter it one element at a time. Maybe just a URL argument...

Gordon

[Richard]

Hi Gordon.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm pleased you like it. I understand your suggestions and the following is just to explain why we did things the way we did, not to pick a fight over what is the right way - there is no right way.

I personally would like an option to have the computer enter the initial pencil marks of allowed numbers, because it is tedious to enter those manually, and then have the pencil tool DELETE them...

There's no option to enter the pencil marks automatically. It's my opinion that working out the possibles for each cell is part of the solving process. If the computer does it for you then the computer has helped you solve the puzzle. Admittedly, on the hard puzzles the computer has only done the easy bit, but for easy puzzles where only singles are required to solve them, the computer has done most of the work. So I chose not to implement such a feature.

The solver needs a way to enter an entire puzzle as a text string.. tedious to enter it one element at a time. Maybe just a URL argument...

My main intent with the site was to make it easy for the general public to use. As such, a lot of effort went into the software for the puzzles themselves, with the ring selector and a lot of other options. Having designed this interface, I chose to use the same interface in the solver rather than adding (and explaining) a whole new interface for inputting puzzles as text strings.

You can input a puzzle quite quickly by disabling the ring selector (in the both the options menu [click the options button] and the context menu [right click in the puzzle]) then using the cursor and number keys to enter the puzzle.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Richard
Strictly Sudoku

[soo-DO-koo]

I've got one too
http://www.soodokoo.com

[Jo88]

Hi Gordon,

Entering a puzzle by text string (comma delimited ? zero for blank ?) sounds interesting. Wonder what you mean by URL - URL to a .txt file ?

Jo

[Jo88]

Hi Richard,

Just looked at your site - nice work !

It made me consider once again what makes a puzzle easy or difficult - the four on your site look similar at first glance. I guess that the more duplicates of clues the easier to solve. Any pointers on this ?

Jo

[Jo88]

Hi Richard,

I set show incorrect cells on 'how am i doing' but it doesn't. Or did i miss something ?

Jo

[Jo88]

Hi Soodokoo,

Nice artwork !

But the puzzle is a bit small and the 'check' button is slow to respond.

I guess that's because it's JavaScript.

Jo

[Jo88]

A new SuDoku site - play online :

http://www.kinabaloo.com/relax/sudoku.html

This site has been improved. Now with pencil options, auto-checking of rule breaking, hint and solve. Its unlimited puzzles are now symmetrical. A new timer too. Free.

Jo

[Jo88]

Hi Gordon / All,

New feature (thanks for the idea).

Enter your own puzzle by simply pasting the text representation into the text area provided, then press the 'Enter' button. When solved, the solution is also shown as a text string that can be copied out of the text area.

Any formatting is automatically ignored. Blanks can be represented by any of the following 0.?xX*-_$#%

Try it :

http://www.kinabaloo.com/relax/sudoku.html

Jo

[Richard]

It made me consider once again what makes a puzzle easy or difficult - the four on your site look similar at first glance. I guess that the more duplicates of clues the easier to solve. Any pointers on this ?

Hi Jo

The difficulty grading on my site is based on what techniques are required to solve the puzzle and, in the case of easy puzzles, how easy it is to find the singles for the solution. This may bear no relation to how many clues are given so the puzzles may look similar even though one is very much harder than another to solve.

Richard
Strictly Sudoku

[Richard]

I set show incorrect cells on 'how am i doing' but it doesn't. Or did i miss something ?

Hi Jo

Using this setting, the incorrect cells will have a red border around them after clicking "how am I doing?".

Richard
Strictly Sudoku

[Jo88]

Hi Richard - tried again but still don't see any red borders.

Jo