Sandwich Sudoku 4+

I really like this app, but I do have some gripes.

Major gripe.

I don’t like the interface design with tools and numbers. It seems very non intuitive to me. I would like the buttons to be divided between actions, modes and objects.

Objects would be the numbers 1-9, the 19 number pair, X and the colors (these can all be used to fill any selected area).

Actions would be trash, undo, redo, and erase selected objects (the current erase is modal and only erases numbers).

Modes would be limited to the three number placements (one of the three buttons should always be selected) and the button for for multiple area select which should toggle between on and off and be independent of the number modes.

Minor gripes.

At one point in the first puzzle I had filled in all the 8’s and accidentally turned one of the eights to a seven which was red, but because the eight at the bottom was still grayed out I couldn’t press it to restore. I finally realized that that I could use undo (which I hadn’t used before that) to fix it.
One and nine at the bottom was grayed out but the 19 button wasn’t.
The shifting background makes me think my eyes are going bad and the other colors schemes are horrible.
Kudos.

I only looked at the first hint on the first puzzle, but it was so good compared to any other hint I have gotten in any other sudoku app that it overcomes my gripes and so gets a 5 out 5 rating.

This is a great app. The controls are clear and offer multiple ways to mark cells including colors, corner pencil marks, center pencil marks, and Xs.

I was initially disappointed that I couldn’t combine corner pencil marks with center marks in a cell to denote different things, but found that it wasn’t necessary.

It took me a while to find a use of colors, but I ended up using it to mark cells in a row or column of a square that must contain either a 1 or 9 but for which I couldn’t yet determine which. Only the hardest levels required this for me to solve them.

Recently been watching Cracking the Cryptic videos and was very pleased to learn about the multiple variations on the game. Sandwich being one.

Really enjoy the app. Definitely challenging enough. Plan to replay levels at least a second time to see if I can beat past times.

Hoping to see other variations as well in the future.

If you love Sudoku, definitely give this well-made app a strong look.

Edit: Removed a couple stars since game progress not shared across devices. And on iPad, it forces you to only play in a single orientation.

Removed another star as the update makes things frustrating. For example, if you hop into settings, then go back, the welcome message pops up. Hint messages also come up automatically. Wish there was a way to turn that off. Still cannot share game state between devices.

Removed yet another star. Your implementation of Landscape mode was to literally just resize the UI to fit? And now have buttons very small or UI in the unsafe areas on iPhone X or 11? Fun concept of a game but absolutely horrible app experience. Drains battery massively as well even with the so-called battery saver app.

Now deleting this app. No response from Cracking the Cryptic on all the issues first reported months ago. Also, not going to purchase any other titles since they will suffer the same horrible experience. Tip: rewrite the app to have a great iOS experience and I’ll return as a customer.