Sudoku Mansion

类数独恶魔城，通过解开数独谜题，探索庄园背后故事，做为纸笔类，ui操作没特别不舒服的地方，变体规则有意思，缺点就是难度曲线比较谜，时难时易，一共50+谜题，首发价略贵。

I mean, it's impossible to talk about this game without talking about Sudokuvania series and Super Sudokoid series. This game takes those concepts of multi-grid variant sudoku with metroidvania elements and brings it to the next level with a mechanic that justifies it not being on SudokuPad. I won't spoil too much, but if you love Variant Sudoku, you will enjoy this game. It took me, a medium-skilled solver, a bit over 20 hours total

Another 'Sudokuvania' (interconnected variant Sudoku boards with gradually unlocking mechanics) game, which is ... overall fine? This feels overall like a sequence of (pretty interesting) variant sudokus, without much exploration gameplay. I like variant sudokus fine, but the 'exploration' is what makes Sudokuvanias special, and that aspect is the weakest. To elaborate, the progression in this game is very straightforward, with many rooms being completely completable once it is their time to be solved, compare to the other sudokuvanias where you often are only filling a fraction of certain grids to move forwards, waiting to return when you unlock more rules and have more information. Since this is a standalone app and not like a hacked-together thing on Sven's Sudokupad, it does feel more polished than the other games like this. Also, I would want there to be a mechanic that couldn't be done in Sven's Sudokupad, and while that kinda exists, and the idea is good, I don't think it is used for anything that compelling.

I’ve been a long time enjoyer of Sudoku but somehow had no idea “Variant Sudoku” was such a big deal. This could be problematic for my spare time, especially if it’s as good as Sudoku Mansion. I feel like anyone who is into rules based puzzle games like The Witness would love this - it quickly stops being a standard sudoku and starts becoming complex logic deduction as more and more rules get introduced, leading to some incredibly satisfying puzzle solves when it all clicks. I also love the video games elements incorporated here - there’s a fun meta story going on, theres “boss rooms” to unlock new rules, and a metroidvania-lite progression system where some rooms are unsolvable until you beat some bosses that unlock the required rules. Highly recommended.

To those who have dabbled with sudoku variants, this is a really good play, but the price is a bit steep as a glorified version of Sudokupad with built-ins to help the metroidvania and story aspect of the sudoku. Something I would like to see in particular is a way to import some of the existing multi-puzzle sudokus (Sudokuvania 1 and 2 or Sudokoid) in that format, if anything, this is a really good tool for those and would make playing (and creating, hopefully) those types of puzzles much more enjoyable. Other than that, the sudoku was very well-made, some of the boss stages apply a lot of rules at once that might scare the newbie player, but everything flowed quite well together

a good game, but you can get better and more well-telegraphed puzzles for free from sudokuvania or sudotroid (or their sequels), this one doesn't even use the letters.

Is it worth $15? short answer: YES An incredible entry in the burgeoning genre of 'Adventure Sudoku'. Heavily inspired by and certainly no lesser than the first of it's kind "Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair," Sudoku Mansion boasts many improvements brought about by it's dedicated engine, and it's creator's own vision of storytelling and puzzling sensibilities. If you've never played a variant sudoku before, you might think "How can a sudoku be an adventure," and if you have, you might STILL be wondering that. Well, as the progenitor's name implies, they function somewhat like a metroidvania game. Simply put, as you progress, you will unlock the ability to interact with previous puzzles in new ways. Saying much more about how it functions beyond that is a disservice to the experience, as Adventure Sudokus, like with most good handcrafted puzzles, live off the journey into the unknown. DIFFICULTY: 2-7/10 The puzzles get harder as you go, so don't despair if the earlier puzzles seem a bit too easy for you. There are 3 puzzles in particular that absolutely devastated me, without those I would say the cap on difficulty would be 5/10. I think by the end its just slightly harder than the original Sudokuvania, but easier than Sudokuvania 2; just keep in mind, when it comes to variant sudokus, difficulty is highly subjective as some mechanics will come more naturally to you than others. PRICE: $15 might sound like a lot, especially because the other members of the genre are currently available online for free, but if you look at my play time, you are getting a LOT of content (unless you are a significantly better and faster solver than me I suppose). But if you need more convincing, you are paying not just for the wonderful the puzzles themselves, but also the presentation. If you are used to sudokupad, the premier method of online sudoku solving, most of the amenities you are accustomed to are present, along with the addition of a culling button, a truly visionary tool that removes all redundant pencil marks in a puzzle, perfect for newcomers or people who just dislike the scanning aspect of sudoku for whatever reason. Additionally, the more dedicated system allows for some very nice quality of life and presentation improvements over sudokupad in terms of Adventure Sudoku mechanics, like a hint system that can tell you if a puzzle is solvable with all the rules you have unlocked if you get stuck, and hiding clues and grids that you can't use yet. On top of all that, if you've already solved all the currently available Adventure Sudokus found on Sudokuvania.com, $15 dollars is a perfectly fair price to pay for more of the FIX I NEED, I NEED MORE

not beginner friendly, but very good puzzles

Both a well crafted and flawed Sudoku experience. NOTE: This game requires a lot of experience with Variant Sudoku. You'll be able to finish about 70% to 80% of the game with an intermediate skill level (my level). The end of the game does require what I'd consider expert level puzzles. There are about 8 or 10 puzzles in the game that I'd never solve on my own. The Sudoku puzzles in this game are very well crafted. There's good flow to the solves and some nice telegraphing of what's needed to progress (for most of the puzzles). I imagine creating these puzzle took a very long time and it shows with the quality. Progression is a bit hit and miss. This is not a linear Sudoku game. You will be required to stop a puzzle and go elsewhere to continue. Most of the time, this flows naturally. At about the mid-point of the game, it becomes very confusing to know where to go and there are quite a few discovered and unfished puzzles (some with 3 different modes). You mental flow will be interrupted and you'll forget a lot about 1 or 2 previous puzzles in the chain. The game does have mostly optional help tools. If you've used Sven's Sudoku pad, it will feel very familiar. It can show conflicts and can check for incorrect digits (as well as remove them). There's also an "missing clues" marker for puzzles that you'll likely not be able to finish. This is only used up to about the half-way point of the game and it's also deceptive. There are plenty of puzzles that you can't finish without completing another that are not marked. You can also make a lot of progress on a puzzle with the marker and quite a few require this for progression. At the time of this review, the game is also bugged so that you cannot click on cells that are near the HUD marker. You'll either need to use keys for navigation or disable the option. There is no hint system and no guide. There's no detailed or partial description of the puzzles break-in. Many of the puzzles use the Fog-of-War mechanic, which is a type of hint system. It only shows the most important parts of the grid, so you focus on the right section. It also can clear fog from multiple cells when a correct digit is entered. This is a great system. Without a full hint system or a guide, once you get stuck - you're stuck. The only way to progress is to try and find someone's video playthrough (none exist at this time) or guess for a digit and use the "checker" to detect if it's correct. There are end-game puzzles I brute-force cheated and still didn't figure out how to solve them. There are also some end-game puzzles that where at or near my skill level. So, I'm glad I got to play them - I found them very enjoyable. The rules can be hard to understand as written, if you've no previous experience with them. I thought a puzzle was bugged at one point because it introduced one rule in a Chaos Construction puzzle and mentioned part (mild spoiler)[spoiler]outside the grid - which seems to infer outside the 9 boxes in the grid[/spoiler]. That's not what it's referencing. There's also one puzzle that's missing a lot of rules. It's an 8x8 board that doesn't mention what digits are required, doesn't mention rows and columns must have not duplicates and doesn't mention there are no regions. It only says digits on white squares cannot repeat on the diagonals. I do recommend the game, but with a BIG disclaimer. This is not approachable Variant Sudoku. There are end game puzzles that would probably be rated a 4/5 difficulty. You'll not be able to completely finish the game naturally unless you're an advanced/expert level solver.