genina.com: Forum

machine wrote:Enjoy solving sudoku! My times are nowhere near the times I see posted on this forum but I enjoy the challenge all the same. After a while I became bored with the pencilwork involved so I wrote a program in Excel to do the work for me. I copy the puzzle into excel and then every cell is immediately pencilled in with every possible solution. As I solve cells I can choose to update all cells at any time.Took a long time to write the program but it was every bit as challenging as solving sudoku and as enjoyable. The program was written on Excel 97 platform and is roughly 1.7 MB in size. Would like to send you a copy for your assessment but it is much too large for an email.

If you aren't doing it to compete and just want pencils in you can do that through the built in app, though it will remove your game from being submitted.

The auto removing in columns and rows though it will do just fine(aka if you fill in, it will erase)

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, my best score on "Extreme" is about 8 minutes, and I frankly can't see how someone can get it done in 4 minutes. It's almost not physically possible. OK, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to sudoku, but I can tell when everything's going my way and I'm pretty much just filling in the squares as fast as I can count them. There's a certain minimum time that it's just hard to beat. I notice one individual dominates the 4-minute range, and having played this version many times I am fairly sure they could not be that successful without cheating.

They are welcome to come on the forum and explain themselves. My guess is, at a minimum they are re-starting the game many times until they find an easy one--the extreme games are variable and some are almost impossible to solve while others are almost too easy.

My best is 3:04 on extreme, and all of my top ten are in the 4 minute range or less. None of these are cheating because I don't believe in it. It is possible to do them in that time, I've literally been playing sudoku for over 10 years and genina has a great layout which makes solving the puzzle actually about the logic and not trying to locate all the numbers via their highlight system and allowing both cell and digit first depending on play style. As you get more comfortable with the game and the layout your times will go down, and no not all of them will be that low(just recently did one that was just over 7 minutes, and I have one on here that is over fifteen.

I have over 60 extremes logged on this app, only about 5 over 10 minutes, and over 30 under 6, as time goes on you will get some where the numbers you pick are in fact the best to solve for your playstyle. Likewise you will learn tricks(such as it is quicker to solve by comparing single numbers and open cells as opposed to counting out what is missing in a row/box/column) or logics(if three squares in a row/column/box contain 3,5,9 and nothing else, no other boxes in that row/column/box can) that make it that much quicker.

And no, the only time I ever restart a game is when I realize I filled in a square wrong at some point, either through misclick or didn't see something.

AlexM wrote:The only real way to tell who is better at sudoku is to use only paper and pencil. Additional options in computer applications give too much help. I always switch off everything except pencil marks for high difficulty levels, because otherwise puzzle becomes boring.

They don't do any of the logic for you, they just remove the tediousness of removing marks when you are on a roll towards the end. Paper and pencil actually gives a far emphasis to who can write and erase quicker compared to this one. TRUE test of just sudoku logic would be a hell/impossible difficulty game(maybe extreme, but they still have some easy squares comparatively)(no those difficulties aren't in this app) with all of the pencils already in of all POSSIBLE ones in that square solely base don what's filled in. Then the user whittles down the possibilities using logic. It takes no logic to remove all of the pencils from a row, column, and box, just time.

Ikeray wrote:yeah, clearly there are 'cheaters' on easy; you're not filling in a puzzle in 0:30 unless you already have a solution.

I find 2:00-3:00 hard to believe, but more believable.

my best time is 5:40 and I felt like I was constantly 'inking' in the digits. average time is 6-8 minutes (all my bests are under 8minutes), but every so often I get stuck and go to 15 minutes.

if I don't have a puzzle solved after 15 minutes, I use the verify button, because I surely messed something up royally somewhere.

100% legit my best is 1:30 and I've only played easy 6 times on this app(I prefer the challenge in extreme) If you use pencil marks you can't get tiny times, but you power grind easys you will get one that lines up perfectly with your method eventually and just blow through it, plus you'll get faster from experience and whatnot.

When you've played sudoku as much as I have you don't have a problem finding the challenges in easy, so then it is just a time race.

pmactoo wrote:Reading through all these posts really opened my eyes. I assumed everyone played the game like as I do. I don't use any of the "help" you can choose in the settings - not even the colored grid. What is the purpose of that. You can't do that on paper and I average about the same times in a soduko book. I like to play the game and the more you play, the better you get. My best time for expert is 6:09. I'm proud of that score and used no "help" to get it. It does depend on the puzzle though. There have been puzzles that took me 20 min. and I imagine there will continue to be. We are comparing apples to oranges here. Sure, if you are quick with your thumbs - as the young lady in the video - and you are using all the "help" the game offers, then, yes, I can see times as those being posted. With that being said, I don't understand the challenge in doing so.

Because the light up just shows you which are in the columns and rows so you don't accidentally miss one. That way if you fail it's your logic that makes you fail, and not your eyesight that makes you fail. It doesn't solve anything for you, just helps you focus on what you should be looking at.

driv4r wrote:My best is 6:20 but sometimes I solve for an hour or so, especially if it's one of those puzzles where you need to use the 50-50 option, i.e. there is no way to find a cell with only 1 possible option, so you have to guess and try 1 of 2 possible numbers, if you pick the wrong one then try the other number.
So, it really depends on your luck as the difficulty varies considerably in those extreme sudokus.
And once again I have solved similar level sudoku (though the 50-50 ones are very rare) much faster on my laptop and my best result is 3:10.

You never actually have to guess and check, you can logic around it (aka if in a column you have a possible 4-7-9, a possible 4-7, and a possible 4-9, no other cells in that column can be 4, 7, or 9 because those three have to be in the three cells mentioned)

Nan-jeong wrote:...and here I thought my 2:11 on easy was smokin' (for me, at least) until I signed up today to check out other ppl's times.

Are these sub-50 sec times reality (it would take me about that simply to enter the numbers alone)

...honest opinions?

Totally possibly. My fastest is 1:30, and I rarely play easy. Working with your fingers to get them to go fast enough, as well as becoming second nature to use the program, then it is mostly just about how fast you can solve them, and if you pick the right starting number(or box or column or row, however you solve) it can go incredibly fast.

AJ wrote:i sure would like to see how these speeds are accomplished....like someone else said..it takes at least 20 seconds just to enter 1 digit into all of the boxes, and i am not clumsy or slow ar anything like that. Im not a sudoku guru or anything, and I know there are math whizzes who are a lot smarter than I am. However it still takes time to enter the numbers. I wish someone would make a video of themselves doing just an easy puzzle and show me how you can possibly enter all those numbers in less than 1 minute. I simply do not understand how it is done.

It is because when you have enough experience you don't use pencil marks on easy puzzles. There are even hard puzzles I've solved without pencil marks(no extreme ones yet) because you can tell where stuff goes. For non electronic games I do the whole thing without pencil markers, because hand written it takes longer to actually write them and erase them all correctly than to just logic it out.

Some basic concepts, if you have a number in 2 of the 3 columns of a box, and 2 of the 3 rows of a box, you can guaranteed know where to place the number in that box. If you've got 8 of the 9 squares in a box/column/row you can figure out the last one by seeing which is missing. If you've got 7 in a box/row/column, you can generally figure out which goes where because one hole will not be able to hold one of the missing ones.

E.G

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 9
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 8
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 7
6 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
2 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 1
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 4
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 5

You know the two missing ones in the column on the right are 3 and 6. 3 coudl go in either, but 6 has to be in the bottom one because of the 6 in the row with the top.

They aren't necessarily using cheat programs, they are probably taking a snapshot, then pausing the game, solving it elsewhere, then filling it.

My Top Times:
Easy 01:31-02:38
Medium 03:07-05:44
Hard 03:53-13:01
Extreme 04:33-07:48

I feel this could be a fantastic feature, which would greatly increase the fluidity towards the end of the game when you're just filling in the chain reactions of having figured one out.