Devlog #2 Rated Sudoku has surpassed other Sudoku games
v0.5.0 and v0.5.1 Patch Notes
I’m very happy to announce that versions 0.5.0, and 0.5.1 have been released. Among them, v0.5.1 fixes several bugs of v0.5.0. I summarize the improvements of both versions below:
- New feature: Custom game
- New puzzles: 186 puzzles
- Improvement: Added keyboard only input support when solving puzzles
- Improvement: Automatically select the most recently modified profile
- Improvement: Profile name cannot be empty
- Improvement: Beautify the Select Profile Screen
- Improvement: Beautify the Leaderboard Screen
- Improvement: Added total number of games played and win rate in the Leaderboard Screen
- Improvement: Added help button to the Game Play Screen
- Bug fix: Fixed the issue where localized text are displayed a few frames late
- New language: Russian
- New language: Japanese
- New language: Traditional Chinese
Comparison with other Sudoku games
Rated Sudoku v0.5.1 and two other popular Sudoku games on Steam are compared below:
| Features and content | Rated Sudoku | Competitor A | Competitor B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of puzzles | 2415 | 225* | 100 |
| 17 clue puzzles | 122 | 0 | Unknown* |
| 18 clue puzzles | 19 | 0 | Unknown* |
| Keyboard and Mouse Input | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Keyboard Only Input* | Yes | No | Yes |
| Pencilmarks | Yes | No | Yes |
| Number Highlighting | No | Yes | Yes |
| Puzzle Personal Record | No | No | Yes |
| Achievements | Yes | Yes* | No |
| Leaderboard | Yes | No | No |
| Custom Game | Yes | No | No |
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | No |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | No |
Notes for *:
- Competitor A has 225 puzzles as of now, but it also has an infinite mode, which means randomly generated puzzles as needed, except that the quality of the randomly generated puzzles on demand is not as good as the quality of the puzzles prepared in advance
- I don’t know if Competitor B has 17 and 18 clue puzzles, this is because I didn’t play to the end and don’t know the content of the later puzzles
- Keyboard only input means only using the keyboard and not the mouse when solving puzzles
- Competitor A has achievements, but the meaning of them are confusing
Overall Result
Rated Sudoku is still in Early Access, but it has already surpassed other popular Sudoku games in terms of features and content.
The only two areas where Rated Sudoku is currently inferior to these games are the absence of the following features:
- Number highlighting, highlighting 1, 2, etc.
- Puzzle personal record, the shortest time a particular puzzle is solved
However, because there are more puzzles, features such as Custom Game, Leaderboard, etc., it has surpassed them overall.
Highlight 1: Pencilmarks
TODO: Image
Original source:
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As shown in the screenshot, Rated Sudoku has Pencilmarks (small numbers) feature so that you don’t need to rely on memory. It works very well.
Puzzles except easy ones will have slots with only 2-3 possibilities, but can’t be decided for a while, and using pencilmarks to record them will make it much easier to solve.
This feature is also available in some other Sudoku games, but not in all of them.
Highlight 2: Custom Game
This version has one new feature, Custom Game. With Custom Games, you can play any puzzle! Just enter the puzzle into Rated Sudoku.
For example, if you see an interesting Sudoku puzzle on a website, you can enter it directly into Rated Sudoku to play it, as shown here:
TODO: Image
Original source:
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Type in the puzzle content, click Check to find out if the puzzle is valid (i.e. if there is one and only one solution) and what its difficulty is, and then you can start solving the puzzle! It’s that simple!
This feature is not available in most other Sudoku games.
Highlight 3: Great Keyboard and Mouse Input
Rated Sudoku has well designed keyboard and mouse input. You can play in a few ways, whichever suits you best:
- Mouse click to select a slot, keyboard to enter numbers from regular number keys, hold shift to toggle pencilmarks
- Mouse click to select a slot, keyboard to enter numbers from Numpad, hold shift to toggle pencilmarks
- Arrows keys to select a slot, keyboard to enter numbers from regular number keys, hold shift to toggle pencilmarks
- WSAD to select a slot, keyboard to enter numbers from Numpad, hold shift to toggle pencilmarks
The following keys are currently used:
TODO: Image
Original source:
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This will allow you to solve puzzles with ease! More improvements on input is planned, such as (planned, subject to change):
- Holding Ctrl + arrow keys to move fast (move a few slots at once)
- Adding XBox controller input support
Some other Sudoku games do not support keyboard input, and while others do support it, they are not as well-designed as Rated Sudoku.
Highlight 4: Leaderboards
Compare with players from around the world! This version improved this screen, and it looks better now! As you can see in the screenshot (this is my rank, the reason why I’m ranked 4th is because there are not many players at the moment):
TODO: Image
Original source:
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Most other Sudoku games do not have a Leaderboard feature.
My personal experience as a Sudoku player
I’m quite new to Sudoku, I have just started playing a few months ago, and I only know 3 techniques, and I don’t even their names. I’ve learned them through trial and error. But so far, it seems that the easy and medium difficulty puzzles are doable, although they might take half an hour. I haven’t tried the hard puzzles, so I don’t know yet.
Anyway, I’ll be playing Sudoku in Rated Sudoku for a long time to come, and learning and growing into an advanced Sudoku player(hopefully). Finding out what features I need and develop them for myself! So I can make sure that this game will satisfy the needs of the majority of Sudoku players!
Developer’s Note
As a developer, I am proud that Rated Sudoku has surpassed other Sudoku games on Steam in terms of features and content.
In addition, Rated Sudoku is still in Early Access, which means that I will be working on and releasing many new features and improvements in the process. Hopefully, one day, Rated Sudoku will far surpass other Sudoku games on Steam and become the choice of the majority of Sudoku players.
There are lots of new features, puzzles and other improvements planned for Rated Sudoku in 2024, so follow and add the game to your wish list please!