Cracking the Cryptic

Name: Cracking the Cryptic
Rating: 4.4 (199 reviews)
Author: Nick Carney

Curated Sudoku Puzzles

Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad

199 Ratings
Ages

4+
Years
Category

Puzzle
Developer

Nick Carney
Language

EN
English
Size

231.5
MB

Line Sudoku Line Sudoku is a pack devoted to sudokus involving… LINES! Each puzzle features one or more of the popular “lines constraints” that often feature in variant puzzles on Cracking The Cryptic, including Renban, German Whispers, Palindromes, Region Sum and Ten Lines! We’re thrilled that Line Sudoku includes puzzles by Phistomefel, Qodec, Clover, zetamath, Jay Dyer, Tallcat, Mr Menace, Peter Veenis, Joseph Nehme, Richard Stolk, Prasanna Seshadri, Tyrgannus and Full Deck & Missing A Few Cards! In addition, Mark and Simon have written hints for the challenging puzzles themselves so these hints are meaningful and, above all, educational. -------------------- Welcome to the brand new Sudoku app from YouTube’s most popular Sudoku channel, Cracking The Cryptic. Unlike other Sudoku apps, we feature handcrafted and curated puzzles from the world’s best Sudoku constructors. Each collection features puzzles made by various authors that are now familiar names to those who follow the channel. Authors like Phistomefel, Clover, Sam Cappleman-Lynes, Christoph Seeliger, Richard Stolk, jovi_al, Qodec, Prasanna Seshadri and of course, Simon and Mark! Downloading Cracking the Cryptic will give you access to our two launch packs. Our first free collection is a variety pack by Prasanna Seshadri featuring 7 puzzles inspired from our previous Sudoku apps; Sandwich, Classic, Chess, Thermo, Miracle, Killer and Arrow Sudoku. Our first paid collection is Domino Sudoku, a new variant not featured in our previous apps with puzzles from our amazing constructors. We’ll be releasing more free and paid packs in the future so keep an eye on the app for more Sudoku content from Cracking The Cryptic! -------------------- Domino Sudoku Domino Sudoku is named after its domino-like appearance with X's, V's, white dots and black dots placed between cells on the grid. Each puzzle features one or more of these domino types with them all having a different effect: an X means digits in the two cells in the domino must sum to 10; a V means they sum to 5; a white dot means the digits are consecutive; and, finally, a black dot means the digits must be in a 1:2 ratio (ie one of the digits must be double the other). As you can imagine, when you allow the world’s best Sudoku makers to use these rules they are in their element and they’ve made another set of masterpieces for this collection with a huge amount of variety! We’re thrilled that Domino Sudoku includes puzzles by Christoph Seeliger, Sam Cappleman-Lynes, Richard Stolk, Prasanna Seshadri, Phistomefel, Qodec, Clover and jovi_al. In addition, Mark and Simon have written hints for the challenging puzzles themselves so these hints are meaningful and, above all, educational. As a bonus, Studio Goya has curated 10 generated beginner puzzles so that players of all skill levels can enjoy Domino Sudoku! In Cracking The Cryptic’s games, players start with zero stars and earn stars by solving puzzles. The more puzzles you solve, the more stars you earn and the more puzzles you get to play. Only the most dedicated (and cleverest) sudoku players will finish all the puzzles. Of course the difficulty is carefully calibrated to ensure lots of puzzles at every level (from easy through to extreme). So do join us as we continue to try to revolutionize Sudoku app genre.

Ratings & Reviews

4.4

out of 5

199 Ratings

Great overall, some hard, I wish just one app
04/26/2023

Reviewer Name 6
I love the variant sudoku is available through here and the intuitive app layout. Some of them are so hard that the hints don’t seem to make any sense because they just states are gonna be true without any explanation. Greater detail in the hints would be very helpful.Most importantly, I really wish that all the different packs were integrated into one app on my phone. I’m happy to keep paying the same amount per pack of puzzles, five dollars for Thermo, five dollars per knight pack, etc. But having a whole bunch of different apps to switch through is complicated to figure out which puzzle I want, where it is, and it and clutters up my phone. I really like that this version they released has multiple packs to buy within it, and I hope that they keep adding other options for in app purchases within this one app.
Great overall, some hard, I wish just one app
04/26/2023

Reviewer Name 6

I love the variant sudoku is available through here and the intuitive app layout. Some of them are so hard that the hints don’t seem to make any sense because they just states are gonna be true without any explanation. Greater detail in the hints would be very helpful.Most importantly, I really wish that all the different packs were integrated into one app on my phone. I’m happy to keep paying the same amount per pack of puzzles, five dollars for Thermo, five dollars per knight pack, etc. But having a whole bunch of different apps to switch through is complicated to figure out which puzzle I want, where it is, and it and clutters up my phone. I really like that this version they released has multiple packs to buy within it, and I hope that they keep adding other options for in app purchases within this one app.
Not Approachable for Newcomers
10/18/2023

jeje1067
I absolutely love the channel and solving puzzles. I don’t pretend to be the same level of genius as people who complete these puzzles within an hour but o knew I could try my hand at some puzzles and slowly build a skill set. Although the puzzles so far have been brutally challenging, I have found it to be an enjoyable experience for the most part. However. The one thing that is making some levels absolutely horrible experiences are the hints. The hints themselves often require leaps of logic that are in no way clear to the untrained eye. I will read some hints that claim something that I cannot for the life of mean prove to be true or understand and I don’t feel it’s right to make progress off of logic I don’t understand so I get stuck. The hints NEED to be readdressed and modified for anyone at any skill level. Although I already said I’m not a genius, I’m can say with a certain level of confidence that I am rather intelligent but it was still very very rough at times.
Not Approachable for Newcomers
10/18/2023

jeje1067

I absolutely love the channel and solving puzzles. I don’t pretend to be the same level of genius as people who complete these puzzles within an hour but o knew I could try my hand at some puzzles and slowly build a skill set. Although the puzzles so far have been brutally challenging, I have found it to be an enjoyable experience for the most part. However. The one thing that is making some levels absolutely horrible experiences are the hints. The hints themselves often require leaps of logic that are in no way clear to the untrained eye. I will read some hints that claim something that I cannot for the life of mean prove to be true or understand and I don’t feel it’s right to make progress off of logic I don’t understand so I get stuck. The hints NEED to be readdressed and modified for anyone at any skill level. Although I already said I’m not a genius, I’m can say with a certain level of confidence that I am rather intelligent but it was still very very rough at times.
Great app, but the latest update was for the worst
08/30/2022

Emma Sea
The puzzles are great, but the update is making things hard to enjoy them. I love that the newest update included a new set of puzzles, but the quality of life changes certainly hurt my enjoyment of the app. I particularly miss the eraser (I realize the backspace key functions as an eraser, but it visually is less intuitive than an actual eraser icon) and the bulk erase trash bin, but the layout change is also distracting and unwieldy - in landscape mode, the puzzle is shoved as far to the left of the screen as possible with an awkward dead space on the right with the inputs below it. Why the forward/reverse, back, setting, and hint boxes aren’t in the dead space, I don’t know - instead they’re squashed between the puzzle and the number keys, making the bottom right of the screen very visually cluttered.
Great app, but the latest update was for the worst
08/30/2022

Emma Sea

The puzzles are great, but the update is making things hard to enjoy them. I love that the newest update included a new set of puzzles, but the quality of life changes certainly hurt my enjoyment of the app. I particularly miss the eraser (I realize the backspace key functions as an eraser, but it visually is less intuitive than an actual eraser icon) and the bulk erase trash bin, but the layout change is also distracting and unwieldy - in landscape mode, the puzzle is shoved as far to the left of the screen as possible with an awkward dead space on the right with the inputs below it. Why the forward/reverse, back, setting, and hint boxes aren’t in the dead space, I don’t know - instead they’re squashed between the puzzle and the number keys, making the bottom right of the screen very visually cluttered.
Great puzzles and playability, with a couple caveats
10/21/2023

Bryan_B
I love Cracking the Cryptic, and the puzzles they have in the app are truly fantastic. The app has great marking features (two forms of pencil marking and colors) for solving these difficult puzzles as well. However, it eats battery like crazy and has (relatively) few puzzles for the price tag on each pack. Battery Life: 100% battery on my iPhone 14 Pro Max gets drained to ~50% after only a couple hours of play. Puzzle updates: I appreciate that they are hand crafted and manually hinted, but updates are frustratingly few and far between. I would love to play puzzles from videos here instead of Sudoku Pad (which doesn’t always import correctly), even without hints, for more content and variety.
Great puzzles and playability, with a couple caveats
10/21/2023

Bryan_B

I love Cracking the Cryptic, and the puzzles they have in the app are truly fantastic. The app has great marking features (two forms of pencil marking and colors) for solving these difficult puzzles as well. However, it eats battery like crazy and has (relatively) few puzzles for the price tag on each pack. Battery Life: 100% battery on my iPhone 14 Pro Max gets drained to ~50% after only a couple hours of play. Puzzle updates: I appreciate that they are hand crafted and manually hinted, but updates are frustratingly few and far between. I would love to play puzzles from videos here instead of Sudoku Pad (which doesn’t always import correctly), even without hints, for more content and variety.