Playing sudoku on Puzzled
The guide and all sudoku lessons
The guide teaches sudoku. This page is about the game around it: the buttons under the board and what each one costs, playing on a keyboard or a phone, and how rooms, series, watching and the standings work when you play with other people.
The control bar, one button at a time
Five buttons under the board and a clock above it. Three of them change nothing but your own screen, one is a saved part of your board, and one asks the game a question. Knowing which is which is most of knowing what they cost.
Undo and Redo
One step per move: a digit and every pencil mark it removed come back together. The undo history is yours alone, the room only ever sees the board, and it is cleared when you move to another puzzle, so nothing from one grid can replay onto the next. A paid reveal is a checkpoint: you cannot undo past it, because the board would come back but the thirty seconds would not.
Notes
Turn it on and digits become pencil marks. Placing a real digit removes it from the marks around it, and the squares it changed flash so you can see an edit you did not type. Marks are saved with your board, so a reload, a reconnect or a move to another puzzle brings them back, and they are private at every watch setting.
Hint
One press, and the game picks. Wrong digits on the board? It rings them and spotlights one with the digit that belongs there: 30 seconds, because that came from the answer. A naked or hidden single on the board? It points at the square and the unit that proves it, names the technique, and fills nothing: free. No single? It fills one random empty square: 30 seconds. It does not look for pairs. Presses are five seconds apart, and the button shows the wait draining away. A pointing hint stays up until you place what it pointed at.
Erase
Clears the selected square's digit and its marks in one go. Givens ignore it, and every other key, so nothing you do can damage the puzzle's evidence. Backspace does the same from the keyboard.
Pause
Stops your clock, and only yours. The board blurs and stops taking input while paused, so paused time cannot be play. Leaving the puzzle, closing the tab and finishing all stop the clock too, and coming back puts you on a paused board with the time you had.
The clock, and the penalty beside it
04:33 + 0:30 is play time plus hint penalties, kept apart on purpose. The first number counts only while you play. The second is what paid hints have cost, and it never touches the running clock. The standings add the two together, so a clean solve of the same time always ranks ahead.
On a keyboard
- Digits type into the selected square. On a 12×12 or 16×16, two keystrokes make one digit (1 then 4 enters 14), with a short pause to tell 1 from 14.
- Arrows move the selection; with nothing selected they start at the top-left cell, and they stop at the edges rather than wrapping.
- N toggles Notes. Backspace erases. Escape lets go of the selection.
- Ctrl/⌘ + Z undoes and Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + Z redoes; every other browser shortcut passes straight through.
- Nothing typed while a dialog is open reaches the board, and the chat box keeps its own keys.
On a phone
- Tap a cell, then a key on the number pad under the board. Each key shows how many of its digit are still to place, so a pad key going quiet is a digit finished.
- The board, the pad and the toolbar are sized to fit the screen together on every shape, so nothing scrolls under your thumb mid-puzzle.
- Locking the phone or switching apps saves your last moves first. If the connection drops while you are away, your clock stops and you come back to a paused board.
- The room's chat, ranks and history live in a tab bar at the bottom rather than beside the board.
Rooms, series and the standings
A room is a table with up to twelve seats, dealt one puzzle at a time. Everyone at it races the identical deal, and the room keeps playing series after series until its host ends it.
A series is a ladder
Three, five or ten puzzles on a curve the host picks: a gentle ramp, a classic climb from easy to expert, one steady level, a steep climb from medium, an alternating wave, or a custom ladder with the level and the board of every puzzle chosen by hand, and shapes can mix. A series is never changed once dealt; the next one can be anything.
Free-flow or synced
Free-flow lets you move between the puzzles of a series at your own pace, forwards and back, and start the next series when you are done. Synced keeps the room together at the series level: nobody deals the next series until every seated player has finished the current one, so the standings settle before anything new is dealt. Moving between the puzzles of a series is free in both.
Who deals the next series
The host decides when the room is made. Either the first player to finish picks the next ladder and everyone joins it as they finish; or only the host starts it, and finishers watch until then; or nobody does, and the room ends with the series and shows its final standings. A room that has ended keeps a replay of every board.
Three ways in
Quick play seats you in the liveliest public room with a free seat, falls back to one that has gone quiet, and opens a fresh room only when nothing has a seat. A code (four to eight letters and numbers, and capitals matter) or the QR code a room shows takes you to a particular table. Public rooms are listed and open to quick play; private ones are code-only and need a registered host.
Watching
The host sets one policy for everyone, seated players included. Full boards shows digits as they are placed; progress only shows how full each board is and where the mistakes are, never the digits; no watching lets nobody in. Notes never show. A watch link into a room where nobody is playing says so, and the view starts the moment somebody sits down.
Ranks, history and chat
The Ranks tab orders the room by puzzles solved across every series, then total time with penalties, then live progress. The History tab lists each series' standings and lets you jump to one you have not finished. Chat runs beside the board: guests read, registered players write and react. A player who steps away keeps their rank; the standings are a record, not attendance.
Away is not leaving
A closed tab, a tunnel or a locked phone makes you away: your seat, your paused board and your place in the series are all still yours, and reconnecting restores exactly what you left. The room holds an absent seat for five minutes before it may offer the chair to somebody waiting. Even then your board is kept, and a full room tells you so when you come back. Leaving is the deliberate act, asked once: the seat goes immediately, your boards and solves stay in the room's history, and your other open tabs follow you out. Solo rooms hold your seat for as long as you like.
Frequently asked
Ready to play?
Quick play seats you in the liveliest public room with a free seat, or play a board on your own.