- I totally agree with RFB's suggestion for a grid-style pencilmark layout. I have found myself making my own pencilmark grids, but it sure is frustrating when you mis-place a mark, and don't catch it early enough.
- It would be nice to have all the difficulty levels easily accessible in some manner, rather than the awkward [Ctrl]-F5 routine.
- To get into the automated pencilmark debate, I don't really care for a nearly fully automated pencilmark system. Sometimes not getting side-tracked in the middle of a pencilmark-alteration process is a skill on it's own. However, I agree that it can be tedious, especially when you are starting a puzzle that didn't give away too much from the easily eye-balled techniques. Why not allow for a button/menu-item that would give you basic pencilmark data, using just the digits in the same row/column/box as each each cell. It would certainly give a starting point, which is what I find myself wasting a lot of time getting to. If you make it so that each time it is used it creates pencilmarks in the same naive manner, it should keep use limited after more subtle connections are found. Of course, there would have to be some option so that the user can say how he/she interprets pencilmarks.
- Pressing "5" equals selecting 5. Good idea.
- And finally something that I was thinking of, though perhaps it's an ill-advised suggestion. Just starting out, I am having trouble seeing the patterns in my gibberish I call pencilmarks. Looking for X-wings, subsets, etc. just taxes my eyes and brain. I guess this is where the practice comes in. However, would it be possible to allow for hiding pencilmarks of given digits? Another pencilmark trick may be a quick inversion to go from "(what I'm pretty sure are) impossible digits" to "(what I think are) possible digits", and vice versa.
Anyways, my two cents, but a great game!
