Social Sudoku Review

Our Review by Chris Hall on January 20th, 2011

Rating:

:: SOMETHING NEW

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Sudoku has been in creative hibernation for a while now, and Social Sudoku is just the kick in the pants it needs.

Developer: Cluemaster
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.13

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I'd be lying to you if I said that I had any faith in a Sudoku game being any good. Maybe good is a strong word, what I mean is that Sudoku has been done. It's exhausted.

Cluemaster, apparently not getting the memo, recently came out with a Sudoku game that is, well, good. I'll spare you the rundown of what Sudoku is (here's the Wikipedia entry) and get right into what makes this one different.

Instead of just plopping a single player Sudoku puzzle down for you to play, Social Sudoku has this great Game Center enabled two player mode. Instead of giving two separate puzzles though to see who finishes first, Social Sudoku has you competing against each other on the same board. Get a number right and you get points, wrong and you are penalized. At the end of the game the person with the most points wins. If it doesn't sound all that exciting, it is; provided that playing Sudoku as fast as you can sounds fun.

Fortunately for those who don't like competition, there is a solid single player game included in Social Sudoku that has six different kinds of Sudoku included (standard, jigsaw, killer, kakuro, mini, and Sudoku X). All the boards were made by the same puzzlers that made the puzzles for the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and the daily Daily Telegraph, so you know that they are all of the highest quality.

Obviously, Social Sudoku is a Sudoku game, and while you may already have a Sudoku game on your iPhone, this one is the first one in a while that is truly, honestly different. If you think you are up to snuff, maybe you should challenge me to a game or five (FYI, I'm not that good).