I've played this game on Android and it is one of my favorites. I am glad I can play it now on my computer as well. I have always had hard time with the original sudoku, but for some reasons playing sudoku this way makes the game much easier for me. It just makes more sense!
Author Comments
Are you a Sudoku addict ready a brand new Sudoku experience? Or, you have never tried playing sudoku because it looked like a math problem? Well, here is something new - a brand new 3d interface for sudoku.
The gameplay is the same as in a normal Sudoku, but you need to match colors instead of numbers. You need to rotate the sphere and memorize the colors; you can make use of the marker to help you to memorize the colors you predict. There are 4 levels of difficulty, ranging from beginner to master. If you get stuck, feel free to use the cheat button to reveal the correct color (your score is reduced slightly when you do so).
Unfilled cells are gray.
Each color can be used only one time in every horizontal line, vertical line, and 3x3 area (in grid pack)
Also available for Android on Google Play, Samsung & Amazon.
More on www.spheroku.com
I like it. It's an interesting spin (haha) on sudoku.
the only issue I have is the game won't let you get it wrong. If I try to put the wrong color (or if I'm simply being lazy and trying to guess incorrectly), the game will not register that color, so I now know that the color placement is incorrect. In this case, you can lazily figure out the correct result by exhaustively placing colors in all the empty spots until it shows up (which means it is in the correct spot)
You probably should allow for incorrect placement to still change color, so you cannot gain information simply by being wrong.
Other than that... I like it a bunch.
PawelBodytko responds:
The first version of Spheroku on iOS and Android had an option to choose between 2 modes, with or without corrections & cheats. I will keep it in mind and the next version will have this feature back...
Right now, there are penalties for giving the wrong answer. (Points are taken away each time you guess wrong).
It's not badly implemented, but the concept isn't thought out very well. Your attempts to solve nonexistent problems have caused real ones.
Being unable to see more than half of the "board" at a time makes it a chore to check specific rows and columns, and on at least one occasion I've lost track of what column I was focusing on while rotating the sphere. And just think about what would happen if a colorblind person tried this game!
I'll stick to old-fashioned Cartesian-grid numerical Sudoku.
PawelBodytko responds:
The whole history of humanity is about solving non-existent problems :-)
-- There was nothing wrong with the caves! Here is an example of evolution: one brain creates something, another brain takes a different view and makes changes, some agree with those changes, others disagree. It is a very dynamic world in which nothing stays still. Why should sudoku be any different?
I was a sudoku addict before out of curiosity, I twisted it onto Spheroku concept. The two questions that I had at the time were answered --
1) Putting the grid on a sphere does not make the game more difficult. (It takes about the same amount of time to solve the puzzle. Your problem of getting lost is the beginner's issue. This goes away if you continue playing.)
2) Colors make it easier to spot patterns than numbers -- easier to notice what is missing.
Not seeing the whole grid all at the same time is both a curse and a blessing -- you can focus better on what you see. The fact that you need to rotate makes the game more dynamic. (Other parts of the brain get involved -- spatial coordination, short term memory. As a brain exercise device, this is a plus!)
Now. This is me. I do understand that some people will disagree. There is nothing wrong with this and I am writing this not to be argumentative or disrespectful.
The question you raise about color blindness is definitely valid -- this version is not for everyone. (Can a blind person play classic sudoku?) There is still is an Android version of Spheroku that you can have numbers on a sphere (In fact in that version you can play the same Sudoku 4 different ways), but for some strange reasons, to create WebGL version I had to change the way the programming was done -- I had to use simple color materials vs textured materials as it was on Android (textures had numbers)-- Unity Web player was drawing too many calls and was slowing down the game to a point it was very uncomfortable. This is why I decided to include only colors on a sphere.
Please consider all this and let me know if you still think that "the concept was not thought out very well"... :-)
well designed game and a good way to waste time
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Daily 4th Place June 30, 2017