Sudoku Master Edition: Logic

This latest update has introduced a bunch of bugs. Some are so fundamental as to make the game almost unusable now - it doesn’t remove notes as it’s supposed to when a number is locked in to a row, and just now I noticed it actually let me enter the number 2 twice in one row. The auto-fill function (for when there’s just one number in a segment remaining) has also stopped working properly, and all of a sudden the Apple Pencil integration is allowing non-pencil input, drawing on the notepad or filling number boxes with handwriting even when I’m not using the pencil, just tapping the screen with my finger! Also, the numbers no longer “go away” when they’re all placed. It used to be that when you had 9x 2s, the 2 would disappear as an option. Now it stays there, even though you can’t use it any more. This was definitely the best sudoku app in the App Store, up until two days ago. Now.... eh. Needs some help! Edit: updating to 5 stars based on developer response and quick resolution of reported issues! Mistakes happen but what matters is how you respond to them. And this team responded exactly as they should. Thanks, guys!

I'm new to Sudoku, so I'm not sure how it would typically be scored, but the way this game does it is silly. When you play a tile, the name of the tile is multiplied by a number which decreases as the timer counts up. This scoring system allows for a user to be presented with the "same" board as another, execute the exact same sequence of moves with the same timing, and come to a different score. To do this, all you must do is permute all of the tile names, i.e., replace all 1s with 9s, all 2s with 1s, all 3s with 2s and so on. This doesn't really change the board since you could replace the numbers with letters or glyphs and the structure of the soduko board remains the same - there is still one one of each type of tile in each row, column, and square. For a perfectionist like myself, this scoring system causes me to constantly restart games until I get that perfect start that allows me to play a bunch of 9s in the beginning. Ideally, the tiles would count evenly, since it doesn't really matter which tiles you are playing. If you are playing tiles at all then you're making progress. My suggestion would be to instead measure how sparse the board is (since play is more difficult the fewer tiles on the board) and multiply this value by the value determined by the timer. There are of course other options. I just don't like the way it is done now. Other than that, this app is awesome. 4/5

I downloaded the game and realized there were ads underneath the game being played. There were also loud and annoying ads after the game was completed. I paid $4.99 to remove ads. The ads are still there — all of them. I wrote the game support group to find out what I should have expected when I paid to remove ads, and I did not get a response. I think they are dishonest. My advise to anyone using this game is to play it with the ads and to not pay any money to remove the ads. No one will remove them, and no one will respond to you. If I could give a lower mark than one star, I would. Update: It has only been one day, and after I heard from the developers, I tried their suggestion. The ads are now gone, and I couldn’t be happier with the game. I like playing this game, and I am happy to find out that the people who developed it care enough about it to take care of the people who play it. My apologies for jumping to conclusions; I have run into game developers who are not interested in how their game affects those who play it, and I am glad to see that you are not one of them.

UPDATED REVIEW: Developer responded to my review 😐...That’s actually the 1st time I’ve ever received a response on a game I reviewed and I’ve reviewed many. They responded with, “blah blah, blah blah, blah”. I didn’t read it yet, but I’ve raised my 3 stars to 5 just because they responded. I’m also changing my like for this game to LOVE because my issues have been solved....maybe that’s what they were telling me 🤔...well anyway, this is a great game. I love how it’s like 5 or 6 levels of difficulty, instead of the usual easy, medium, hard. I like it because even the easy is not too easy to solve. I like that you can chose a color scheme for the squares and the lines are almost transparent so all you really see are a bunch of numbers. It’s confusing in a good way when trying to select the right number, because it forces you to think harder and make accurate decisions. I really love this game because it’s not easy and I just don’t see how I’d get bored with it. It’s challenging and it’s by far, the best Sudoku game I’ve ever played. 5/4/18 review: I like this game. I would LOVE it if it didn’t crash so much 😒

Part of the reason I selected this over the dozens of other sudoku apps is that I was impressed with how responsive the developers are to these reviews. Full disclosure: I have not tried any other sudoku apps so my review is not intended to be a comparison to other apps. The UI is thoughtfully laid out and the settings offer tons of options that allow you to customize the playing experience to your liking. The ads are not intrusive and don’t interfere with game play. I have really enjoyed this game. This app, plus a cup of coffee and a quiet spot, provides me some beautiful zen time. The only frustration I’ve had is that multiple times my saved game has disappeared. Frequently I will work on a puzzle over the course of several days, however 4-5 times now that puzzle will randomly disappear. Just today I was working on a puzzle that I’ve been chipping away at over the past 2-3 days, I set my phone down for an hour or so and when I came back there was no option to resume play. It won’t prevent me from continuing to use this app but I would love to see this resolved in future updates. Thanks for reading!