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Show HN: Sudoku with 0 Bells or Whistles

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Re: Show HN: Sudoku with 0 Bells or Whistles

#11

Post by joelalcedo »

y-curious wrote: post #10
joelalcedo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! A pencil tool should be straightforward to add. Do people usually use a stylus for these purposes? Someone else mentioned the ads, I can easily embed some mechanism to remove them.

You can keep ads, but the sudoku app I use gives you a few hints for free, first. Pencil tool is usually a toggle- you default to `pen` but toggle `pencil` mode to fill them out. Look at the top android sudoku app's implementation, it's slick.

That's helpful, thanks so much!

What type of hints are most useful from your POV? Are they more direct (i.e. here's a free box in case you are stuck), or more suggestive (e.g. "Pay attention to the naked pair in the third grid")?

With the latter, striking a nice balance between hints which are simple to articulate without esoteric terminology is important.

Really appreciate the pencil mode pointer, I'll check it out.

Re: Show HN: Sudoku with 0 Bells or Whistles

#12

Post by ebiester »

joelalcedo wrote: post #7
y-curious wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: No pencil tool, no active checking. Also, you should trickle free hints at people instead of forcing an ad click, that's how you get 'em.

Thanks! A pencil tool should be straightforward to add. Do people usually use a stylus for these purposes? Someone else mentioned the ads, I can easily embed some mechanism to remove them.

Honestly, look at Cracking the Cryptic's app. It's all hand generated puzzles so it's much more expensive, but their app is definitely the best.

Re: Show HN: Sudoku with 0 Bells or Whistles

#13

Post by joelalcedo »

paranoidxprod wrote: post #9
joelalcedo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! A couple people on here have mentioned they like their gameplay to come with 0 advertising so I will remove ads altogether as a feature. Would love to hear how the gameplay went and if you have any suggestions.

Personally, the banner ads at the bottom of the screen and ads for hints don't bother me at all. Most apps I find seem to have a system where you have to watch an ad after completing a puzzle or when you make a few incorrect guesses, which bother me. I do always appreciate when apps have an option to turn of ads for a buck or two so I'm sure others would appreciate that too. I'll be sure to check back in once I get a…

Gotcha and yes - when I started playing, a few apps asked for location permissions, and served ads up before I even started playing. The only ads that are served here are one at the bottom and one when a hint is requested.

Few items to add onto the list thanks to this thread, really appreciate it.

Re: Show HN: Sudoku with 0 Bells or Whistles

#16

Post by joelalcedo »

ebiester wrote: post #12
joelalcedo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! A pencil tool should be straightforward to add. Do people usually use a stylus for these purposes? Someone else mentioned the ads, I can easily embed some mechanism to remove them.

Honestly, look at Cracking the Cryptic's app. It's all hand generated puzzles so it's much more expensive, but their app is definitely the best.

Thanks, I will take a look. Really appreciate the suggestion.

Re: Show HN: Sudoku with 0 Bells or Whistles

#17

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

TN1ck wrote: post #14

Shameless plug: I built an open source, completely free, no ads/tracking whatsoever sudoku with a lot of bells of whistles. It’s only web based, so no native apps. Find it here: https://sudoku.tn1ck.com/ Source is at https://github.com/TN1ck/super-sudoku if anyone is interested

Very cool, feature request if you ever work on it again: numpad support, a way to toggle-off the row/square highlighting when you select a cell, del key to empty a cell.
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