About two weeks ago I told you about a fun new “kids” sudoku, Disoku Apprentice,. If your kids are anything like mine, they've been spending hours of time mastering the levels of that game and are ready for a bigger challenge. Thankfully, Disney has provided that too!! Disoku Master is a more advanced, and thus more challenging, Sudoku game. Still filled with Disney characters, of course, but this time it is the famous Disney Villains!There are literally tens of thousands of puzzles available in this game, so I doubt you'll “run out” of things to do for a VERY long time. You're rewarded for solving puzzles by unlocking screensavers, too, though we haven't tried any of those yet. Just solving the puzzles is more than enough of a reward for our family. The game offers two sizes of grids, the 9 by 9 that most people are familiar with, and a much harder 12 by 12 grid. It is all number based this time, not character based, but that fits with the idea that this is for more “grown up kids” such as myself. You also can then pick from either easy, medium or hard level of puzzle. This level changes how many numbers are filled in to begin with. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to solve a “medium” puzzle, which is the same as on a paper one. If I turn on “show wrong moves”, then I can cut that down to about 5 minutes. All that the “wrong moves” so is if there is a conflict somewhere in where you placed a number, though. If you are just guessing to start with no real basis on why to put a particular number somewhere, it won't tell you that. The interface itself is easy to get used to. You click on either the pencil or pen. Pencils put small numbers in the box starting in the upper left corner, and won't cause a red “error” message to show up even if you put numbers which would “break a rule” in a particular box. Pens put large numbers in the box, and obviously will create a red box if you have “show wrong moves” turned on. Either can be erased by right clicking in the box, though, so nothing is permanent. After clicking in the box, it shows as highlighted by yellow stars, and you click on the number you want to place in that box in the top row. It really is that simple.
The game also comes with the option to “create a puzzle”. Let me tell you, this is a LOT harder than it looks. First you have to figure out where to put all the numbers without causing conflict (you definitely want help here at least at first). Then you have to remove numbers from the board so that your puzzle is playable by someone else. Or, if you're at all like me, you can make a puzzle one week and forget what you created, going back and trying to solve the mess you created on your own the following week. I've created puzzle where I left out so many of the wrong numbers that I couldn't figure out what the solution was!! And I had no one to blame but myself, which made it even more frustrating.... but fun, of course. I think ultimately that's what is so fun about Disoku Master. No matter how frustrated you get at your own inability to solve a particular puzzle, it is only a matter of stretching your brain muscles a little more and thinking logically that can turn that frustration in to fun. Grab a copy of Disoku Master for yourself and you'll see what I mean.
I’ve played computer games since college, addicted first to story type games like Might and Magic. I have 3 children who also love computer games. My oldest son is a typical kid who loves the challenge of pressing the right combination of buttons and levers on a joystick in just the right way to make something happens, and frequently gets frustrated with mom’s slow fingers. ;) We use computers for both education and entertainment, and sometimes even bribery for good behavior.
The “glory days” of computer gaming for me were when games like Spectre Supreme, Pirate’s Gold, the Might and Magic series, the original Prince of Persia… those sorts of games were coming out on a regular basis. Back then I owned a Macintosh and was a die hard Mac fan. I was one of the first in my area to buy an iMac and on it learned the joy of playing games on the internet like daily crossword puzzle and “mind bender” type puzzles. My first online RPG was given to me for Christmas the year EQ was released, and I was hooked from day one. I played EQ for about a year. I started playing DaoC during late alpha testing, and was hooked on it.. well, to be honest I still am. I’ve tried pretty much every MMORPG I can get my hands on, from big names like EQ, to more obscure ones such as Underlight. I’ve been writing for IMGS since the first DaoC guide, and find I love the challenge of learning a game and presenting what I’ve learned (and sometimes my opinions), to other players.
I’m not a very strong player as far as learning PvE or quick reaction times, so I tend to stay away from games where I’m pitted against someone else in a way that requires physical (rather than mental) response. I still enjoy story and puzzle games, and in a way that’s how I still approach online games. I would much rather spend hours working through a quest than 5 minutes in combat against another player. I still get lost in simulation type games, obsessing over them until I’ve gotten them beaten. And I like being able to sit down at the computer when I’ve got less than half an hour and playing through a few levels of a puzzle game. I tend not to like first-person shooter type games, or anything with person to person violence, so I steer away from them unless they are fantasy based settings. All in all, I enjoy computer gaming so much that my life feels incomplete somehow when my computer is down.
