Yeah, I’ve done it again. I’m well known for reinventing the wheel and this is no exception.
As I’ve previously mentioned I decided to write a Multiplayer Sudoku game that you can compete with other players online playing. Well, I sort of got stuck for a while on the puzzle generation. I hate the idea of hard-coding puzzles and pulling from a list when it is something that could be generated. Yes, I did look around for other APIs to generate puzzles, but they either weren’t in Java, were very poorly written, or were tied to a UI (like AWT or Swing). Sure, I could have made one of them work, but I decided that if I teamed up with my Wife I could create an awesome API that I could make open-source and then anyone else venturing for such a solution in the future wouldn’t have the hardships I had to deal with.
On that note, I’ve gotten the actual solution generator written. It works quite well generating a solution in about 200 milliseconds on average. I still have to write the puzzle generator that takes into account difficulty, verification that a solution can be determined logically, and that there is only one solution. However, the majority of code I’ve already written can be reused for most of it.
I’ll be posting a link to the project when it’s completed so anyone who wants can use it. It won’t be too long after that’s done that I’ll have it plugged in and usable in my jSeamless Sudoku game.
It’s a little odd that I’m creating a Sudoku game at all really…I’ve never really enjoyed playing them all that much, but I do appreciate the logic of the game. My wife is much more interested in it than I am, so I’ll just say I’m doing it for her. 😉