[b]6/10[/b]
Good Kakuro implementation with 800 levels.
[b]What is it:[/b] A classic number logic game, known as Kakuro. You have to place numbers in a grid, given the sum on every row and column, and knowing that numbers in a row/column must be unique. There are 800 levels (at the time of the review), from small and easy 3x3, to big and challenging 15x13.
For this type of game what matters is the tools at your disposal. You have the usual pen and pencil numbers, and a listing of the possible number combinations that can make up the row/column target, respecting the pen numbers you already placed in them. When you make an error, the wrong row/column/duplicates blink, and when you fill in a pen number, the pencil numbers on the same row/column turn red to let you know it’s no longer a valid option.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3301559045
There are help tools for when you’re feeling stuck: check for errors, highlight errors, fill in a random cell. Works with a mouse or keyboard. You can use the arrow keys to select an active cell, type numbers, or Shift+number to write in pencil, Delete to clear a cell. There’s undo available, but I couldn’t find a keyboard shortcut for it, just an onscreen button you can click with the mouse. Controllers are not supported, but it works on the Steam Deck using the trackpad+triggers, or the touchscreen.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3301560303
Other good things: all levels are unlocked, and you can have as many levels as you want in progress. Not so good: no settings at all, and no Steam integration: no cloud saving, no achievements, no leaderboards. Still, it’s a good enough implementation for a pure logic game.
[b]How hard is it:[/b] It starts very easy, gets progressively harder, the last chapter is quite hard, each level takes an hour or more to solve without hints.
[b]How long is it:[/b] 16 chapters of 50 levels each, hundreds of hours to solve all of them, and all are unlocked from the start.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3301560638
[b]Quality:[/b] Basic, but good enough for a logic game. Undo, in-progress saving for all levels, good level select. Decent keyboard and mouse controls, except the lack of a key for Undo. No settings at all, but you can manually resize the window and toggle fullscreen with Alt+Enter. Basic graphics, no sounds or music. No dark mode. No cloud saving, no achievements, no leaderboards, no random levels. Small, fast and responsive.
[b]Worth the price:[/b] It’s free, definitely yes.
[b]Most positive aspect for me:[/b] It’s a type of game that I like.
[b]Most negative aspect for me:[/b] No cloud saving.
[b]What would make it better:[/b] Key for undo. Redo. Cloud saving and achievements. Daily levels. Custom level editor and workshop support. Dark mode. Rename the help tools to better reflect what they actually do: “Check for errors”, “Highlight errors”, “Fill in a cell”. Better help tool: Fill in all annotations. Free drawing tool like in Tametsi or 14 Minesweeper Variants. A few different colors for the pencil mode. Checkpoint: save the current state, then I can try out an assumption, and if it doesn’t work out, restore the checkpoint. When I fill in a cell, instead of highlighting all the duplicate pencil numbers, remove them automatically. Long-pressing on a cell with only one pencil number in it turns it into a pen number. Remote play together. Explain somewhere that you can use the keyboard to write numbers and that Shift activates pencil mode.
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