Stackdoku

What is Stackdoku?

Stackdoku is a 3D puzzle game that lifts the popular Sudoku formula into the third dimension, dropping Sudoku's numbered hints and using each space's height to guide you towards the solution. Lean back and enjoy a casual puzzle experience, or race against yourself and the clock to solve as quickly and in as few moves as possible.

Just like a typical game of Sudoku, you need to fill in a 9x9 grid of squares without repeating numbers in any row, column, or 3x3 block of spaces. But instead of getting a handful of spaces filled in for you to get you started, all of the spaces are empty(!) Don't worry though -- the size of each space serves as a hint for the right number you need to use to solve the puzzle.

"I just completed my first puzzle on Stackdoku, and it was such a relaxing experience. Like if popping bubble wrap also scratched my brain itch for smooth and level surfaces." (Early Playtest Review)

This game was designed to support mouse-only, mouse+keyboard, and touch-only input. You can use click-and-drag to turn the game board, click to select spaces, then use touch or number input to fill in space values. 

As of the latest release (v0.4), the game supports three different game difficulties -- Easy, Normal and Difficult. 

• In Normal mode, the game doesn't tell you if your entries are correct until you've fully filled-in the game board, and the same number can be entered any number of times (pay attention!) -- play until you win!
• In Easy mode, the space will tell you if your number is right or wrong with color coding, and when you find the right number for a space, it won't let you repeat that number in the same row, column, or 3x3 block of spaces.
• In Difficult mode, the game plays almost exactly like Normal mode, with one exception: if you guess a space value that's *larger* than the correct value, you will lose and have to start a new game. Sort of a "challenge mode" for speed runners.

About the Game and its Development

This game was developed as a conceptual prototype during the month of January 2022 (1/5 - 1/30) as an opportunity for the game dev (me!) to learn more about programming 3D games in the Godot game engine. This is the second game I've made, following development of a visual novel called 'Not Another Advent Story' with LUDOGOOD Games, which was built using Twine 2. 

Stackdoku was a way to challenge myself to make a game that involved more challenging game logic and workflows, as well as a way to help myself learn more about the Godot game engine. The idea for a 3D puzzle seemed like a fun way to make a mildly competitive game that could be played for high scores with a relatively low learning curve.

Right now, you can play the game on Windows, Linux, and Android with little issue. I've added back a Mac OS build with the launch of v0.4.0 along with some download instructions, but please note that Mac OS's gatekeeper tools make it a bit difficult to load indie games unless you have a paid developer account with Apple.

If you have feedback or input on the project, please drop a comment in your review or in the most recent devlog entry. I'm mostly feature-complete on this concept, but will continue to update with bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements as needed. 

Thanks for playing! ✌️