Good Sudoku by Zach Gage

4.05
Healthy
Price: Free
Ads: Unknown
In App Purchases: Yes

iOS App Store

Temporal Dark PatternsTemporal Dark Patterns

This game has 0 reported Temporal Dark Patterns. There are 14 votes indicating the absence of a dark pattern.

5

2 votes
Playing by Appointment -
0 / 2 votes
Being forced to play according to the game's schedule instead of yours.

2 votes
Daily Rewards -
0 / 2 votes
Encourages return visits every day and punishes you for missing a day.

2 votes
Grinding -
0 / 2 votes
Being required to perform repetitive and tedious tasks to advance.

2 votes
Advertisements -
0 / 2 votes
Forced to watch ads or given rewards for watching ads.

2 votes
Infinite Treadmill -
0 / 2 votes
Impossible to win or complete the game.

2 votes
Can't Pause or Save -
0 / 2 votes
The game does not allow you to stop playing whenever you want.

2 votes
Wait To Play -
0 / 2 votes
In-game timers that make you arbitrarily wait for something.

Monetary Dark PatternsMonetary Dark Patterns

This game has 0 reported Monetary Dark Patterns. There are 22 votes indicating the absence of a dark pattern.

5

2 votes
Premium Currency -
0 / 2 votes
Exchange rate between real money and in-game currency disguises the real price of items.

2 votes
Pay to Win -
0 / 2 votes
A player can spend real money to purchase something that gives them an advantage in the game.

2 votes
Artificial Scarcity -
0 / 2 votes
Limited time offers with unnecessary urgency.

2 votes
Pay to Skip -
0 / 2 votes
Spend money to avoid waiting for a timer to expire.

2 votes
Accidental Purchases -
0 / 2 votes
Making it easy to accidentally spend money with no confirmation or ability to undo or refund the action.

2 votes
Recurring Fee -
0 / 2 votes
Encourages players to play as much as possible to get their money's worth.

2 votes
Gambling / Loot Boxes -
0 / 2 votes
Spending real money to play a game of chance for a reward.

2 votes
Power Creep -
0 / 2 votes
A permanently purchased item in the game becomes less valuable over time.

2 votes
Pay Wall -
0 / 2 votes
The game becomes impossible to continue playing without payment.

2 votes
Waste Aversion -
0 / 2 votes
Capped inventory forces you to destroy items or upgrade inventory. Also, having small amounts of left over premium currency.

2 votes
Anchoring Tricks -
0 / 2 votes
Placing a cheap item next to an expensive item to make it look more affordable.

Social Dark PatternsSocial Dark Patterns

This game has 1 reported Social Dark Patterns. There are 13 votes indicating the absence of a dark pattern.

3.81

1 votes
1 votes
Competition -
1 / 1 votes
The game makes you compete against other players.

2 votes
Social Pyramid Scheme -
0 / 2 votes
You get a bonus for inviting your friends and then they have to invite their friends.

2 votes
Social Obligation / Guilds -
0 / 2 votes
To avoid letting down your friends, you are obligated to play when you don't want to.

2 votes
Friend Spam / Impersonation -
0 / 2 votes
The game sends spam to your contact list or social media account.

2 votes
Reciprocity -
0 / 2 votes
Feeling obligated to return a favor, share resources, trade an item, etc.

2 votes
Encourages Anti-Social Behavior -
0 / 2 votes
The game incentivizes players to lie, cheat, or backstab other players to get ahead.

2 votes
Fear of Missing Out -
0 / 2 votes
If you stop playing you'll miss out on something or be left behind and unable to catch up.

Psychological Dark PatternsPsychological Dark Patterns

This game has 2 reported Psychological Dark Patterns. There are 11 votes indicating the absence of a dark pattern.

2.62

2 votes
Badges / Endowed Progress -
2 / 0 votes
Reluctancy to abandon a partially completed goal, even one forced upon the player.

2 votes
Invested / Endowed Value -
0 / 2 votes
Having already spent time and money to improve your status in the game, it's difficult to throw it away.

2 votes
Complete the Collection -
0 / 2 votes
The urge to collect all the items, achievements or secrets in a game.

2 votes
Illusion of Control -
0 / 2 votes
The game cheats or hides information to make you think you're better than you actually are.

2 votes
Variable Rewards -
0 / 2 votes
Unpredictable or random rewards are more addictive than a predictable schedule.

1 votes
Aesthetic Manipulations -
0 / 1 votes
Trick questions or toying with emotions or our subconscious desires.

2 votes
Optimism and Frequency Biases -
0 / 2 votes
Overestimating the frequency of something because we’ve seen it recently or memorably.

App Store Ratings

iOS:  (4.07) with 86 votes.



Recent Dark Pattern Reviews

Badges / Endowed Progress reported on Feb 4, 2022
Game Center
Badges / Endowed Progress reported on Feb 3, 2022
Achievements for achieving certain levels of puzzles, or x number of times, or without making mistakes, etc.
Competition reported on Feb 3, 2022
There’s a set of daily puzzles that you compete to complete as quickly as possible, which is compared to all other players.


Report a Dark Pattern

Screenshot You’ve never played Sudoku like this.

Good Sudoku turns your iOS device into an AI powered Sudoku genius whose only mission is to help you learn and love this classic game.

Whether you’ve never tried Sudoku, or you play every day, Good Sudoku’s elegant layout, intelligent hint system, and busywork reducing tweaks will help you play better and have more fun.

- Over 70,000 of the highest quality puzzles you’ll see anywhere
- Optional tools to reduce busywork
- AI powered hint support to continuously boost your skills
- 3 standard modes: Good, Arcade, and Eternal
- 3 Daily puzzle modes that get harder throughout the week + global leaderboards
- 5 levels of difficulty
- Import your own puzzles from elsewhere in Custom mode (and share them with friends!)

---

We put everything we could into making the best digital Sudoku game ever released:

- We wrote a puzzle generator from scratch to create over 70,000 of the highest quality puzzles you’ll see anywhere. We spent weeks figuring out how to generate intricate and complex puzzles you won’t find in other Sudoku apps. Our hardest puzzles require wild techniques like “XYZ Wings”, “Hidden Quadrouples”, “Jellyfish”, and “Swordfish”.

- Most people don’t know this but Sudoku puzzles are actually generated by programatic Sudoku solvers. The fastest way to know how hard your puzzle is, or if it’s valid, is to write a solver that knows all the strategies that can try it. With Good Sudoku, we run our solver as you are playing, so if you get stuck, it can detect what you know by looking at your answers and your notes, and then help you find the next technique you need to solve the puzzle.

- Most Sudoku games classify difficulty into vague Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulties — But what do these difficulties mean? Typically they refer to the kinds of solving techniques that are required to solve a given puzzle without resorting to guess-and-check. In Good Sudoku we aren’t vague about it at all. We lay out exactly which techniques are required for each difficulty level. Good Sudoku allows you to practice them individually outside of puzzles, and keeps track of which ones you’ve learned!

- When we first got interested in Sudoku we noticed that a lot of players spend most of their time looking at the board and counting. On easy puzzles, this counting serves as a way to increase the difficulty by making the puzzle take longer. We know some sudoku players love the counting but we found it a bit tedious and designed some tools to alleviate the busywork. At first these tools might feel a bit like cheating, but once your mind is freed up from counting you’ll have space to see the much deeper more fascinating side of Sudoku: all of the beautiful technique structures. Freed from the burden of busywork Sudoku becomes one of the best search-style games we’ve ever played. More fun than word-searches and solitaire, high-level Sudoku is a real treat — and with Good Sudoku and a little practice, anyone can learn it!

- We noticed when looking at other Sudoku apps although there are often daily puzzle modes, those modes never include global leaderboards. Weird! Good Sudoku remedies this problem!

- We wanted to make the best Sudoku out there, and while we’re proud of our puzzles, we recognize that puzzles come from all places. That’s why we built a quick and easy custom puzzle mode into Good Sudoku, so if you have a paper puzzle that you’re stuck on, or you’re trying some wild variant (Like the Miracle Sudoku!) it’s easy to put it into the game, play it, and share it with your friends. If the puzzle follows standard Sudoku rules, our hint system will even help you get unstuck!

We truly hope Good Sudoku can introduce you to, or deepen your love for this great game.

-Zach and Jack