Another great entry with good app improvements
Mon Dec 14 2020 JdesurraI’ve been a big fan of the Cracking the Cryptic apps, and this one is the best iteration so far. The author line up is great with Christopher Seeliger leading off the puzzles. The killer cages are easily visible, and the themes are a good mix of colors. Like the Sandwich Sudoku app, there is a column to show possible combinations in cages for those of us who struggle with mental math. There are 40 puzzles to start, which I think will keep most solvers busy for a bit. The only downside was I was hoping there would be some little killer puzzles, but it doesn’t look like there are any. That’s a bit of a nitpick since that was never really promised, but it would have been fun to see since combo killer-little killers are quite fun. In case case, this is well worth the money. Another great addition to the CtC app collection.
Not your average killer sudoku
Tue Dec 22 2020 JterseskKiller sudoku is my favorite sudoku variant, and when I heard Cracking the Cryptic was releasing their own app, I was thrilled. As with their other apps, every single puzzle is hand-crafted and tested, and the creators themselves have written a series of hints for each puzzle that not only help you find the next step if you’re stuck but actually teach you techniques to improve your skills.
Every puzzle in this app is absolutely extraordinary. They’ve been constructed by some of the world’s best setters. This is NOT your average killer sudoku. The logic involved is unique and exciting to find.
Plus, the app has every feature I could ask for in a sudoku app: double notation, your choice of error-checking options, the ability to highlight and color, undo and redo. And specific to killer, it will add up cage totals for you, and it gives a list of all possible combinations for a given cage, and has a calculator for you to test other combinations. It’s a magnificent app, and well worth the $5.
My only real complaint is the occasional typo in the hints, but it hardly mars the overall experience. Also, if there were a way to view the hint and the grid at the same time, that would be helpful.
Top Notch
Sun May 23 2021 Dave WooldridgeI really appreciate all of Cracking the Cryptics sudoku apps, and this is one of my favorites. I enjoy that the puzzles in the beginning teach you the particular logic that you’ll need for more challenging puzzles (like how the first puzzle teaches you to use The Secret).
One aspect I really like is the app does a lot of accounting aspects for you, like giving you possible combinations for a given killer cage along with a calculator, plus automatically removing pencil marks that a placed digit interacts with. That is the developers respecting the intelligence of the solver; the challenge is deductions, not getting buried under your pencil marks or petty arithmetic.
Top notch app, hats off to the setters who contributed and the development team.
Beautiful! And a request...
Tue Oct 18 2022 crag__All of CTC's Sudoku apps have beautiful puzzles and excellent tools. My only request for their Killer (and Sandwich) Sudoku is to include list exclusion (in the given lists of sums) in the undo stack. I will often run aground and need to undo myself back a bit, and I lose my thread of deduction when the lists I've grayed out don't revert. If this is a known challenge for UX (it might appear that nothing happened), I would suggest showing (and flashing?) the sums panel when undoing those exclusions. I give it 5 stars regardless, but knowing how thoughtful they are I thought I would offer this request for future updates!
Great puzzles, Sometimes hints are not understandable
Wed Nov 17 2021 Backgammon MasterI enjoy Cracking The Cryptic variations on Sudoku puzzles and spend more time than I’d like to admit playing them.
Sometimes when playing the more difficult puzzles, I look to the hints to get insight as to how to solve them. Many times, the hints are vague and do not help to understand the step. I get that it may be text length limited but if it doesn’t help, why bother.
Keep making these puzzles while trying to help with better hints for solutions.
Difficulty curve too steep
Tue Jan 05 2021 ConfusedSkyOne thing I’ve liked about the CTC apps is that they generally have a pretty gracious difficulty curve where you slowly get introduced to more concepts relating to the sudoku variant. Consequently, I’ve found it a bit harder to develop an intuition for this one. I felt almost completely lost after the first few.
Of course I’m still learning, but I’ve had to view the hints quite a bit.
I think for example after you get the 12 cage in puzzle 5 the logic is quite accessible most people would be able to figure it out. However getting that cage is a multi step process where you have to look quite a bit ahead to understand. I definitely don’t think that deserves to be a 3 star puzzle for that reason.
Tough but excellent puzzles
Sat Jun 05 2021 dsmarleyA great app for when I’m looking for a really tough puzzle to chew on for an hour. One of the few puzzle apps where I don’t feel too guilty about resorting to a hint now and then.
Or if eight or nine minutes go by and I can’t find a logical deduction that’ll move me forward, the app makes it possible to make a guess as to a digit in a particular box and see where it leads. I color the box before I make my guess as to its contents, so that if I reach a contradiction, I can quick undo my moves until the color disappears and I’m back where I started. Very handy.
Speaking of hints, though, the first hint in puzzle #22 is in error.
One suggestion: When one taps on a box, all the other boxes that that box “sees” are shaded. I’d find it helpful if the other boxes within the same cage could shaded in a slightly different color.
Nice puzzles, needs cloud sync
Mon Apr 19 2021 Odysseus42I’m enjoying the difficult puzzles so far! I hope they can add cloud sync feature to the app so I can pick up the game between my iPad and iPhone. The pass phrase system is not very convenient and Apple provides a mechanism for apps to sync. It would be greatly appreciated!
Not quite there yet
Tue Dec 15 2020 ahhhntzI’m sure the quality of these puzzles is excellent, and I look forward to trying them once the app receives a key improvement. Current the corner pencil marks do not display in the same location in various cells depending on whether or not the cell contains a cage total, making it much more difficult to scan the grid and much less satisfying to use the app. I will be happy to update my review and increase my star rating once this is fixed, but at present I cannot recommend the app.
Great layout, but some of the puzzles are poorly rated.
Wed Jul 20 2022 Greenie213Best interface of any killer sudoku app on the market. Big problem, though. The puzzles authored by “Cracking the Cryptic” are much more difficult than puzzles rated similarly by other authors. Since this was developed by CTC, it would seem that they are not good judges of their own puzzles. It leads to random difficulty spikes that are frustrating for players like myself just learning the ropes.
