Feature requests

[JoeM]

First off -- great game. I bought the day I read the announcement.

Some things to make it better...

1) Provide a way to clear all pencil marks -- the only way I found was to go into Menu -> Options -> Assistance -> and then check/uncheck Auto Pencilmarks (then OK, Back, Back, Back). That is a convoluted way to do it.

2) Provide a way to highlight all instances of a number on the screen (show me all 1's in red for example). It can be very useful to determine numbers that there are more of (and therefore good candidates for analysis) -- Maybe clicking on any number already placed would do the highlighting

3) When using the 5-way controller (on my Treo 650), navigating the menus is very hard, because the cursor moves way to quckly. You end up overshooting the choices.

[Howard]

We'll look again at the pencilmarks. We mostly either play with them on or off, but don't tend to clear them (other than by entering values). Maybe a keyboard/graffiti shortcut, although most letters are already used :)

Number highlighting makes sense. I've also had a request to have it show exclusion lines (which we do via cell highlighting), so that's an option too. Perhaps tap and hold on a value in the grid to do this...

There is an option to change the key-repeat speed, so hopefully you can set your Treo repeat a little slower and find a setting that you're happy with. Let me know if not - we could need to tweak it further.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Howard.

[JoeM]

Thanks for the reply.

With regard to the key-repeat speed, I did play with the speed setting -- but it didn't help. If I set it to the Slow setting, it did help with the menus, but then it was too slow in the game-play. The delay is just way to short on the menus -- literally a normal button press often registers as click-and-hold.

For pencilmarks -- If you don't have auto on, you still give the "Fill Pencilmarks" button at any time (right from the main game menu). That is great, when you want a one-off marking, but since they are not automatically updated, they get out of sync very quickly -- so you either need to "fill" again -- or just clear them (which is what I do).

I'm happy to beta test any of this. I have beta tested many commercial products. Let me know if I can help in any way...

Thanks again!

[PaulK]

Hi JoeM,

Thanks again for the feedback, for more information in joining our beta test team please visit Here! (http://board.astraware.com/beta/)

Kind Regards

Paul

[sangahm]

We'll look again at the pencilmarks. We mostly either play with them on or off, but don't tend to clear them (other than by entering values). Maybe a keyboard/graffiti shortcut, although most letters are already used :)

Are these hidden keystrokes documented anywhere? I saw on another message about the "." key. What are other useful ones?

[Howard]

Are these hidden keystrokes documented anywhere? I saw on another message about the "." key. What are other useful ones?

Here's the current complete list of shortcuts:

1,e,E : Enter a 1
2,r,R : Enter a 2
3,t,T : Enter a 3
4,d,D : Enter a 4
5,f,F : Enter a 5
6,g,G : Enter a 6
7,x,X : Enter a 7
8,c,C : Enter an 8
9,v,V : Enter a 9

0, backspace : Delete the value in that cell

h,H : Show a hint.

u,U : Undo the last move

w,W : Reset the puzzle (with confirmation)

a,A,q,Q : Abandon (Quit) this puzzle (with confirmation)

SPACE, n, N, s, S : Toggle the notepad

'.' : Show the puzzle summary (what rating, what techniques.)

m,M : Fill in ALL valid pencilmarks. (This may put back in some that you have removed by using the middle/higher techniques!)

Hope this helps!

Howard.

[kerr]

Just adding my support for a quick and simple way to execute a
'Show all cells that contain a <x>'.

Didn't know about the shortcuts, apart from the numbers 1-9. I might start another topic specifically on my suggestions for full 320x480 support, which would include showing the puzzle summary above the grid (level, rating, techniques, givens)

[ArchiveGuest]

(This post was originally by m8rk)
Would it be possible to put the number choices down the left hand side using a menu option, just for us left handed types it's awkward the way it is!

Many thanks!

Mark

[ArchiveGuest]

(This post was originally by cxc4u)
Would it be possible to allow skinning for the numbers, grid, and background?

[Howard]

Would it be possible to allow skinning for the numbers, grid, and background?
Yes, possible, but not easy. It is on our list, but won't make it in for several versions. Before that we are hoping to provide the choice of several built-in skins.

Howard.

[phephron]

A couple of other suggestions or thoughts -

1) Pressing on a number will show where the other similar numbers on the grid are - this makes it easy to fill in obvious numbers without the eye strain (for us bifocal people) or adding lines to show where the numbers intersect would be nice especially for beginners.

2) The numbers on the right side could change color when all of that number have been used in every square, so you have a quick reference of numbers that you don't have to look at anymore

3)Pencil marks - easy way to turn them on or off

4)Pencil marks - option to add them to squares that have none, but leave squares with manual pencil marks alone.

5) It would be nice to have the mega Sudoku type puzzles, or different objects in 9 x9 just for some variety.

Love the puzzle - I have not seen the perfect implementation yet, but Astraware is the best!

Paul

[JohnZonie]

Hi,

First off, congrats on a very nice implementation of a totally addicting game. Ran down my Palm T3 battery as soon as I loaded it.

My only problem is having difficulty seeing the Red error number. It would be nice if it could either have a settable color for those of us who are less sensitive to red or how about blinking the bad entry?

(If there is already a way to do this, I apologize but I haven't found it.

Thanks,

[sangahm]

My only problem is having difficulty seeing the Red error number. It would be nice if it could either have a settable color for those of us who are less sensitive to red or how about blinking the bad entry?


Yes, I agree. I wish more developers were sensitive to the 10+% of males that have some level of color blindness!