But there are big differences as well. Where minesweeper starts with a randomly generated field, sudoku requires a puzzle to be correct, i.e. soluble with only one valid solution. The greatest challenge though, is to rate the difficulty of a given puzzle. Fortunately, I found one good program that can both generate and rate puzzles. My Sudoku game has an online database of thousands of puzzles, separated into five difficulty levels. Of course, it also has online high scores, just like Minesweeper.

I’m calling it an “alpha” though, because I actually suck at sudoku, so I can’t really test it myself yet. I’ve invited people whom I know like solving sudoku puzzles to test it, and you’re invited as well! Please add your comments to this blog post, and I will be extremely thankful. Things I’m looking at specifically are:

• Are the difficulty levels correctly rated?
• Are the puzzles “good”?
• How can the interface be improved? I know sudoku software usually has some methods for making notations as you solve the puzzle. The next step will be to add that, but how should they be designed?
• Any improvements you’d like to see.
• Any bugs you find.

So please, start solving those puzzles!
http://henrikfalck.com/sudoku/