Astraware Sudoku

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Astraware Sudoku

Available for Smartphone and Pocket PC Priced $9.95

Now supporting English, French, Italian, German and Spanish!.

Sudoku is a logical puzzle game, originally created in puzzle books and then made available in countless newspapers worldwide. The grid is 9 cells high by 9 cells wide and within the grid are 9 boxes each featuring 9 cells. The object is to fill in the numbers 1-9 in each row, column and box, but they must only appear in each one once.

Astraware Sudoku is suitable for players of all abilities and features include 6 levels of difficulty, pencilmarks in a choice of styles, optional completion and tracking of pencilmarks, a unique and innovative notepad which enables players to make handwritten notes and sketches overlaid upon the grid, and an advanced hint system to assist you by highlighting areas where progress can be made without giving away the answer.

Astraware Sudoku features:

Full tutorial introducing you to the basics of how to solve Sudoku

Enter your pencilmarks manually, or use the Auto pencilmark feature (optional at any time)

Choice of pencilmark styles

Notepad available while you play, allowing you to make notes at any time

Beautiful graphics and subtle effects

Integrated Sudoku solver:

Provides hints on what techniques to apply to find a number...rather than just giving you the answer!

Can solve any "true" Sudoku

Rates the difficulty of a Sudoku on more than just number of empty cells - takes into account the advanced Sudoku techniques needed to find a logical solution

(Registered users only) Download new puzzle packs FREE from http://www.palmsudoku.com

(Registered users only) Enter your own Sudoku, then solve them at your leisure!

(Registered users only) Built in puzzle generator with the following features:

Generates puzzles of varying difficulty levels, from the simplest to diabolically difficult

Puzzles generated at the higher difficulty levels require use of various advanced techniques

Creates "true" Sudoku (true Sudoku can be solved by logic alone by using the right techniques - no guessing required

The history of SuDoku

There are various stories to the origins of sudoku, some say it was originally a Japanese or Chinese game created about 200 years ago.

Another more plausible account is that in the 18th century Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler apparently developed the concept of Latin Squares where numbers in a grid appear only once, across and up and down. In the 70's Dell Magazines in the US began publishing puzzles using Euler's concept with a 9 by 9 square grid. They called it Number Place, and it was developed by an puzzle maker, Howard Garnes.

Moving on to the 80's, Mr Maki Kaji the president of the Japanese puzzle giant Nikoli Inc, urged the company to publish a version of the puzzle that became a huge hit in that country. Nikoli gave the game its current name Sudoku, this derrives from the Japanese words "Su" which means number and "Doku" which refers to the single place on the puzzle board that each number can fit into. It can also describe someone who is single or another way to describe the game is Solitaire with numbers.

Nikoli Inc refined the game by restricting the number of revealed or given numbers to 30 and having them appear symmetrically. Afterwards the game became increasingly popular in Japan and started becoming a fixture in daily newspapers and magazines. Yet almost two decades passed before the game was taken up by The Times newspaper in London as a daily puzzle.

Now the history lesson is over lets get back to the game in hand.

The demo version of Astraware Sudoku contains a selection of puzzles to evaluate. After you register, the game then allows you to add a range of additional pre-built puzzle packs. Best of all these extra packs are available free from http://www.palmsudoku.com.

The actual gameplay is straight forward, all you have to do is place the numbers 1 to 9 on the grid. . There is a wide range of six dificulty levels from Beginner to Diabolical so all albilities are catered for but within each puzzle you can alter the many settings to aid you in solving the puzzle or to hinder you.

As with all games it's best to try out the tutorial as it can give you handy pointers on how to get the best out of the game.

The game uses two blue bars to help you pinpoint your location. Other aids to help you in the game is the option to use pencil marks, you use these smaller numbers to enter possible solutions for each square.

All options can be turned on or off at any time.

One of the best parts for me is the puzzle creator, this enables you to generate an almost infinite number of puzzles. Remember each puzzle can be solved by logic

and if you ever get stuck on a puzzle in a newspaper this game can help you out with it's puzle solver feature. By entering the puzzle from the newspaper the solver can show you the solution or give you hints to help you play along.

If you ever get really stuck you can always use helpful hints along the way.

Summary

Astraware Sudoku is definately one of the better versions around with it's wide range of options and usability it will be in my list of favourites for a long time.

More good news is that Sudoku work on the C550 ;)

Sudoku is available for the Smartphone, Pocket PC and Palm devices.

For more information and to try and buy visit Astraware Sudoku

Thanks to sudokudaily.net for the help with the history lesson.

[Guest Confucious]

16:15 for a fiendish!

Send me the puzzle so I can try it! I normally take about 25 for fiendish.