Sudoku Trails

Marcelo Jara

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this game

Sudoku Trails is a sudoku game built as a campaign.

Instead of an endless queue of anonymous boards, there are worlds — from the soft ground of Verdant Hollow to the bare arithmetic of Void Atrium — with a trail of levels running through each: a main path, plus side puzzles to test your skills.

You open the trail by walking it: stars earned on one level unlock the next. That is the only lock in the game. Nothing waits on a purchase, or a currency: there is no currency.

DIFFICULTY THAT MEANS SOMETHING

Boards are graded by the solving techniques they actually require, not by how many digits were removed. Easy boards fall to plain scanning. Master boards need chains. The trail ramps from one to the other as you go.

If that ramp doesn't suit you, move it. Four challenge settings shift the whole campaign up or down the scale — Gentle for a calmer trail, Ruthless if you want the early worlds to bite. Par times follow the board you're actually served, so stepping up never costs you stars.

A DAILY PUZZLE

One board a day, the same board for every player, turning over at your local midnight. The week ramps from a gentle Monday to an Expert Sunday. Streaks are tracked.

THE REST

• Three stars a level, earned against a par time set per difficulty
• Achievements drawn from your own save — none of them gate anything
• Full pencil-mark notes, and Fill in candidates from Hard up — the bookkeeping written for you
• Coloring — four colors to mark cells with, for following an "if this, then that" through the grid
• Undo and erase
• Hypothesis mode — branch a guess, then keep it or roll it back
• Clashing digits are shown the moment they happen
• Four board themes, each in light and dark, following your system setting or pinned
• Plays entirely offline, with no account of its own. Progress can optionally sync between devices through Google Play Games.
• Ads that never get in the way: one small banner below the board, never over it. No pop-ups, no full-screen ads, no videos.
• Experimental Hint mode that walks you through the technique instead of revealing a number.

ADS THAT STAY OUT OF YOUR WAY

One small banner, in its own space at the bottom of the screen. It never covers the board, never pops up mid-puzzle, and never stands between you and the next level. There are no full-screen ads, no videos to sit through, and nothing to watch to earn a hint or a life.

A single optional purchase removes the banner. It unlocks nothing, shortens nothing and skips nothing — the only thing money changes is whether a banner is drawn.

What’s new

Cloud save is now a choice in Settings, under Progress. If you already use
it, nothing changes. New players turn it on there, and only then does Google
ask for permission.