How hard are these puzzles??

[RM1985]

I never really got into sudoku before, but since I've discovered Cracking the Cryptic's channel last week, I've become addicted to their videos! So I downloaded an free app on my phone on Monday and so far have completed 6 easy puzzles at work (during my breaks of course), but my best time was 28 minutes, the worst 75(!!)

Are these games (the other 5 included) also solvable for beginner sudoku players like me? And how helpful are the hints for me?

[NickCarney94]

Our puzzles cover a wide range of difficulty from easy to diabolical. With Classic Sudoku, easy puzzles aren't particularly interesting so there aren't as many as with our other apps. I would recommend starting with Sandwich Sudoku. Even easy Sandwich puzzles can be engaging so you'll find a lot more beginner friendly puzzles there. After that I would suggest Chess, Thermo and Miracle, save Classic and Killer until you're more experienced.

All that being said, we are considering adding extra puzzles to Classic Sudoku meant solely for beginners so maybe keep an eye out for that.

Cheers!

[ShivaFang]

I'm finding the easy puzzles challenging and I watch every CtC video on YouTube so you'd think I'd be above average. What these geniuses consider 'easy' is rocket science to even someone of bright intelligence.

[RM1985]

Postat inițial de ShivaFang:

I'm finding the easy puzzles challenging and I watch every CtC video on YouTube so you'd think I'd be above average. What these geniuses consider 'easy' is rocket science to even someone of bright intelligence.

Ok, that is what I was afraid of, buying this games and then not being able to solve them. But how helpful are the hints? And how many of them do I get?

[Grennan]

Some of the puzzles felt misrated in my opinion, but the ratings usually are done with a basis of what recognized techniques are used to solve it, if you're not using much in the way of brute force / forking.

Probably Level 1 should be solvable by using only 2 techniques: find out that a number has only one possible placement, or find out that a space has only one valid entry: Hey, the 7 only fits in this box - only one place to put it! or, This box needs a number, and only a 7 will fit!

This is especially true if you're going to have a 10-point difficulty scale.

For #41, which is one of only two "1-star" puzzles, it felt significantly harder than that, at least based on my experience trying to help my 7 year old play. It might actually be solvable that way, but if so we missed something trying to do it together.

What the game DOES do well is let you click on numbers and see related squares. This really helps you learn to visualize the relationships, and lets you do things like scan for patterns that matter. If you click on a 2, and see all the 2s in one box are lined up in the same row, that means that box is claiming the 2 for that row, so you can eliminate any 2's in that row in other boxes.

If you go through the numbers one at a time, starting not with 1 but with whatever number appears the most int he puzzle, and place all the possibilities for each number using the "S" pencil marks, then look for patterns like this, you can often make a lot of early progress on these puzzles.

Then at some point pretty early on you'll start to get to "these two boxes are a 2 and a 6, and so nothing else in this row/column/3x3 box can be a 2 or a 6" (or the equivalent, where "2 and 6 only fit in these 2 spaces, so these 2 spaces can't be anything but a 2 or 6).

Overall, I think it's a good UI that can very much help you learn to recognize patterns, and would be stellar if it let you put in your own puzzles to try, so you could input more puzzles of appropriate difficulty for whatever level you are at.

I've solved all 100 puzzles as of today, and I'd say a beginner should get a good deal of use out of it, but even the easier ones might be a challenge.

[Alicecold]

I've only solved the first 5-6 or so puzzles, but I don't think any of them have been hard enough to be impossible for a beginner, and there is only one way to get better :)

You might need to understand some tricks to solve them, but it should be things that are second nature to anyone frequently watching CTC (pairs/triplets etc).

Otherwise I agree with Grennan.

[Chess_Forever]

How easy are the puzzles? I'd say that they are easier than someone to whom one should propose marriage. Sometimes initial difficulty is an optimistic sign of good things to follow. Of course, this is simply my humble opinion; others may disagree vehemently.

[Jim Rockford]

why can't they big grouped by difficulty level???? i am pretty new, now i find i have to actually get sandwhich in order to have easier ones???

[Eva Foxglove]

Postat inițial de Jim Rockford:

why can't they big grouped by difficulty level???? i am pretty new, now i find i have to actually get sandwhich in order to have easier ones???

Click the black bar on bottom right to group the list by difficulty :)
It lets you switch between release order, required stars and difficulty.