Review: Sudoku Time
Score:
84%
Version Reviewed: 1.1
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
It’s almost the end of 2007 and The Great Sudoku Craze of 2006 has passed. Those playing the biggest (almost )mathematical gaming hit of last year (not that there were too many competitors for this prestigious title!) are not playing it because “everyone else” is talking about it but because they actually do enjoy this simple, yet devilishly challenging time waster. They are seasoned, they are hard core, they are the REAL fans. And Game Zone Project's Sudoku Time was made exactly for them.
Earlier this year I was more than happy to review another Sudoku game on my oh-so obsolete E70 (yeah, yeah, you're just jealous of my E90! - Ed). Sensible Sudoku 2 turned out to be the best looking, best playing puzzler of its kind - and finding Sudoku Time was like finding a long lost other half you didn’t know was missing! The newcomer may be not as polished and aesthetically pleasing as the earlier champion but it definitely goes the extra mile in the feature department.
Sudoku Time is Game Zone Project’s take on the well known formula. They haven’t taken anything from the basic rules (which you should know if you are reading this review) but they have added plenty of extras to make their software stand out in the (lets face it) plethora of Sudoku games for S60.
It has 3 different board sizes: the kid friendly 4 by 4, the classic 9 by 9 and the thoroughly time consuming 16 by 16. All these sizes can be played on five different difficulty levels ranging from ‘beginner’ to ‘sorcerer’, each requiring the knowledge of more and more advanced Sudoku solving techniques from the player. Changing difficulty will politely list these techniques, for all of which you can find detailed description in the Help section.
There are 1000 predefined boards - 100 for each difficulty level on 9 by 9 and 16 by 16 boards, plus you can generate, pretty much, an infinite number of boards on all 3 sizes. You also have the opportunity to start a blank grid to type in any board setup you find somewhere else and finish it, check it or solve it with the software.
If these options are not subtle enough to create a board that perfectly matches your skills, you should turn to the extremely flexible hint system which gives you more than enough ways to set the game difficulty for yourself. You can choose from four different kinds of hints to be turned on or off for the current board and you can also set one of five possible functions for the in-game quick-hint tool called ‘On tap clue’. The first provides help on the full board by giving you penciled-in numbers for every cell, allowing you to enter correct numbers only or highlighting the current row and column, while the second helps you based on the currently highlighted cell’s value.
In the settings you can pick one of 8 currently available ways to enter numbers with nothing but the phone’s joystick, choose one of the two available skins and set of grid symbols or switch the language of the game’s menus and the very detailed help system between English, German or Bulgarian. All these settings can be changed during the game too, to fine tune the gaming experience so you can have the most enjoyable and balanced puzzling time possible. You can use further hints in the 'Game' menu, if you get stuck, by requesting pencil fills, corrections or checks.
The page of basic 'Statistics' will show you the number of puzzles you have solved on every size and difficulty level, including your minimum/maximum and average solving time. Although there are no save slots for playing more than one game at a time, there are profiles, so you can have any number of players saved on your phone, each playing their own games (in turn) without messing up your own precious statistics.
The game is screen resolution independent, meaning that you can install it on 240x320, 416x352 and anything in between. Although it might look funny on the inside screen of an E90 (I haven’t checked it for obvious reasons) and it also could be visually challenging to play a 16 by 16 board on a 176x208 screen, I had no problem playing it in either portrait or landscape modes. It is also multi-platform, and is even free for Windows (desktops) so you can actually try the full version on your PC before buying it for your phone.
As you can see, there is plenty going for Sudoku Time, but it also has a few shortcomings. Being multi-platform also means that the controls are not optimized for a Symbian phone - for example there are features you can use only on touch screens, and moving around on the 'Options' screen’s panes, boxes and icons is not always as straightforward as it should be. The main display is rather minimalistic, everything is clean and (mostly) easy on the eye, and you won’t be annoyed by sound effects either because there aren’t any. Luckily Game Zone Project are currently working on an update that addresses these and a few other minor issues so with the next version you might just end up struggling to find anything to complain about.
To sum up: Sudoku Time is a must have for all Sudoku fans, with its bundles of playing options, its well thought-out hint system and the built-in Sudoku encyclopedia (did you know what a Naked Triple (not that one) or a Jellyfish is?). So if you buy just one Sudoku game this winter, you don’t need to look further. And hey, it'll keep you going until the soon-to-be-available (on a few phones at least) N-Gage games.
Attila Katona
Reviewed by Attila Katona at