Sudoku Master

About Sudoku Master

Whether you're a serious Sudoku fan or a curious newcomer, you'll feel right at home with Sudoku Master for Nintendo DS.

Experienced players will face the ultimate challenge with 400+ puzzles in one handy pocket-sized format. It's time to ditch the dog-eared puzzle book and play Sudoku the simple, stylish way using the Nintendo DS's Touch Screen and stylus.

Never tried Sudoku but eager to learn? Then let Sudoku Master be the teacher! With the game's special Practice mode, which lets you know when you've made a mistake, plus other useful features that you simply couldn't have on paper, beginners will soon become experts.

Sudoku Master is more than a mere collection of puzzles, too. You can challenge your skills against the clock in Rank Tests and increase your ranking from a Bronze beginner all the way up to a Platinum master.

How to Play

Sudoku is a very easy game to learn but it also requires logical thought and concentration, though not necessarily mathematical skill.

Sudoku is normally played with a pen or pencil, on grids printed in newspapers and puzzle books, but Sudoku Master for Nintendo DS brings technology into play while still maintaining the simple playability of the paper-based original.

Special Features
If you're a seasoned Sudoku player who likes to make notes of possible solutions within each cell, you can do the same here by writing 'temp numbers' in the corner of the cell.

If you want to quit a puzzle mid-way through, you can also save your game and return to it at the exact point you left, or simply flip the Nintendo DS screen closed and put the system into standby mode.

Difficulty Levels

The game may be called Sudoku Master but you don't have to be a master to enjoy it. Puzzles are divided into three difficulty groups: Easy, Normal and Hard, so that beginners can start at a manageable level and build up their experience as they go along.

There is also a Practice mode which is perfect for Sudoku newcomers. If a wrong answer is entered into a cell, the cell will turn red to alert you of the mistake. (This feature is only available in Practice mode.)

Star Collection System

After you have solved a puzzle, you may receive some stars. The number received depends on the level of the puzzle and the completion time. The higher the difficulty and the faster you solve it, the more stars you can get. If you collect a certain number of stars, you will unlock bonus puzzles!

The Rules of Sudoku

Sudoku is played on a grid measuring 9 cells by 9 cells, which is further divided into 3x3 blocks outlined in bold. The aim of the game is to fill the entire grid with numbers by a process of elimination based on the numbers that are already given at the start.

There are only three rules:


1) You can only use the numbers 1 through 9.

2) Each column and row can contain no more that one of each number from 1 to 9.

3) Each 3 x 3 block outlined in bold can contain no more than one of each number from 1 to 9.

By following these rules and looking at the numbers that have been placed already, you can work out which numbers to put in the empty spaces.

Advanced techniques

Sudoku Master's built-in Guidelines and Temp Number features are useful tools to help you when you become stuck. Using Guidelines and adding Temp Numbers is a simple matter of pressing a button or tapping on the touch screen.

Search for missing numbers within the Guidelines
Look at the picture on the right and try to work out which number should go in the highlighted box. It’s simple, isn’t it? The only number not placed in the Guidelines is a 1. Therefore, the answer is 1. In the same way, you can determine that the number that goes in the box on the top left of this block should be a 9.

Use temp numbers when you can’t decide
Now look at the box on the bottom right side of this block. You can’t narrow down the answer to a single number here, so you should enter the two possibilities, 5 and 3, as temp numbers in the same box. Your temp numbers appear as small red numbers inside the box. In situations like this, temp numbers come in very handy!

Solving one cell can lead to another
Now look at the bottom left box in this block. Because you solved the upper left box with a 9, you can see that a 3 must go here. Therefore, the box you listed with the temp numbers 3 and 5 must be a 5! The last box in the middle must therefore be a 7, and the block is done!