Devlog 1.0.0

Features

- Lose condition

This is a big one. As it was, you could literally just keep guessing forever.

- Autofocus replay button

Bug fixes

- Broken selection

Before I even started using stores, I had a system where if you're focused on a cell that has a number in it, it highlights all of the other cells with that number. At some point, I messed this up. So I fixed it.

- Notes from numpad

Another thing that was fine until it wasn't and I didn't notice until it was up on itch.

- Ability to flag any cell

Numpad now matches keys in that you can only flag a cell if it's one of the original hints from the start of the game.

- Auto-win games past the first

This one was pretty funny. As soon as I made a lose condition that worked on the first playthrough, I had a bug where after pressing the replay button, any choice the player could make would win.

Roadmap

There's very little I plan to do after this before the game jam is over. If I update, it'll be to fix bugs I didn't notice until uploading or to make the game look slightly better.

After the jam

After the rating period is over for this game jam, I'll continue to work on it if I can find any motivation to do so. If you find a bug or just want one of these updates, feel free to comment and that'll probably nudge me.

That being said, if I work on this game in the future, here are some things I want to change:

Difficulty rating

Right now I'm using the `sudoku` npm package to generate sudokus, and it doesn't filter by difficulty without some finagling I'm not sure how to do. I'm not satisfied with this, and will look for a different package to generate the sudokus or generate them myself so that I can let the player decide the difficulty of their puzzle. This will probably be the hardest change, because I'll also have to determine what cell I change to what value according to the difficulty.

Accessibility

- Web accessibility

Svelte gave me a whole bunch of a11y warnings for this project. Some are easy to ignore, like when it suggests I don't use autofocus but I'm checking for whether the element should be focused. Others, like the interactability of the div without an aria role, I'd like to take a look at, to make the game as navigable as an accessible website.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to make it clear what one is doing in the game if they can't see the board. I'm definitely willing to take input on this.

Since the notes text is so small, I'm considering adding a panel off to the side that shows the existing notes of the focused cell.

- Color palette

The main reason I want to redo the color palette is because some of the colors aren't as contrasted as I'd like them to be. I think most of the really important distinctions (e.g. "what cells are highlighted" or "which of my answers were in the solution") have enough contrast, but others are pretty similar, like the black and the dark blue text. I think one thing I'll do is use patterns in my visuals instead of just colors, so then I have more options to pick from while still being obviously different.

Settings

Ideally, the experience of playing this game will eventually be configurable. Here are some settings I want to add:

- Turn off "wrong number" hints

- UI size/scale

- Color theme?

Music and sound

I'm still not sure if I want to add these, because I wouldn't want my sudoku making noise, but if I do decide to add them or see interest in them, I'll make sure to include them in the settings menu as well.