“Get hooked on sudoku with this well designed free version”

Sudoku is by far one of the most popular games to play on a train or bus journey and as such, the format has been cloned millions of times for mobile device (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit).

This game, simply called Sudoku, is one of the most in-depth incarnations of the puzzler I've seen and gives you lots of freedom over how you play it. When you start you can choose to set up the game board yourself, placing numbers on the 9 x 9 grid simply by clicking on a square and selecting one from the pop-up keypad, or using the Palm handwriting pad. It's great because this means you can effectively set the difficulty level of the game manually (there's also an auto option if you can't be bothered to do it yourself).

Once you're happy with the layout you press 'Go' to start playing. One of the most innovative things about the gameplay is that you can choose whether or not you want to 'set' a number. So, if you're not sure if the number will work in a certain square but want to mark your intention to play it you can do so by unselecting the 'Set' option. The number is then displayed in minature and you can add multiple numbers to one square to play around with possibilities.

There's lots of ways to customise the Sudoku board to your tastes, although strangely you can't play around with grid sizes. The only other niggle I found was that the handwriting recognition is a little iffy.

On the whole though, this is an enjoyable Sudoku clone with plenty of options to keep you amused for a long time.

Languages:

English

OS requirements for Sudoku:

OS: Palm OS 2.0

Pros

Choose whether to set a number of not
Highly customisable
View game logs
Hints

Cons

Poor handwriting recognition

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From the publisher of Sudoku

If you still haven't had the opportunity or time to try a sudoku puzzle and you're curious to see what everyone's so worked up about, Sudoku for Palm OS is a good opportunity to do just that. A full and completely free sudoku experience - this game contains all the ingredients you need to catch sudoku fever.

Sudoku includes all the features and options you need to enjoy this popular, puzzling pastime, including a move checker, different settings for marking cells, undo function, personalized tables and much more.

Key features of the game include.

Random and manual game setup. Have Sudoku generate a random game for you, or enter games from newpapers and books, then play them later
Supports the 5-way rocker for selecting and editing cells
Supports direct keyboard editing of cells, designed for Treo computers
Immediately indicates illegal plays (may be turned off)
Check function to indicate mistakes (compares your game against the solution).
Logical solver with log to show you how games can be logically solved
Supports pencilling - tap in possible digits then later "set" your decision
Can automatically erase illegal pencilmarks
Pencilmarks can be selectively shown/hidden - great for figuring out complex patterns (such as Colouring), or simply seeing that single digit
Undetermined cells can be coloured, for manual use of the Colouring strategy
Save the state of a game so you can later back-up. Great for diabolical puzzles when there isn't always a logical play
Hint mechanism - have the game indicate a position that can be logically worked out. It can fill it in for you too (that's cheating!)