Sudoku Sidekick is intended to replace paper and pencil to simplify the task of solving Sudoku puzzles. It does NOT solve them for you... what fun would that be?
Installation is simple. After you download the ZIP file, extract the program file to any folder of your choosing.
The program does not write anything to your system registry, nor is it "spyware". The program is also free from reminder screens,
registration prompts, advertisements, and other such annoyances. (If you do not already have a program to handle ZIP files, I recommend
WinZip or
PowerZip.)
Sudoku Sidekick is very easy to use:
First, you enter and review your starting numbers ("givens"), then lock them by pressing the Space Bar. Your givens will be displayed with a gray background to differentiate them from your guesses.
Use the arrow/PgUp/PgDn keys to navigate to cells and start making guesses. Initially your guesses will be shown in red.
When you are positive that a guess is correct, press the L key to lock that cell. It will then be displayed in blue, with a white background to differentiate it from your givens (see the screen snapshot for examples).
If you discover that you must change a locked cell, you can press the U key to unlock it.
You can view all possible valid numbers for any cell by pressing Enter.
When you have narrowed your guesses to 1-4 numbers for a particular cell, you can add "pencilmarks" (hints) by pressing the P key. These will be displayed in green at the corners of the cell, as shown in the screen snapshot.
Perhaps the most helpful feature is that, as you make guesses or add pencilmarks, the program will automatically validate them for you against numbers in the same square, row, and column.
As you lock cells, your existing pencilmarks will be scanned for validity. Any invalid pencilmarks will be displayed in red. You can remove invalid pencilmarks at any time by pressing the R key.
You can fully customize the colors used for displaying each type of cell by pressing the C key at any time.
Sudoku Sidekick is KarmaWare. It is absolutely free in terms of money, but if you use it regularly, I hope that you will do a good deed (e.g., donate money/time to your local food bank, volunteering at your local library, et cetera). Also, if you
know someone else who loves Sudoku, please tell them about it.
The current version is 1.3.3.1 (08-Nov-2008). System requirements are as follows:
Wintel 32-bit Operating System (Windows 95/98/2000/XP or above)
Minimum 128 kilobytes RAM
Just 1.2 megabytes of hard disk storage space
Unlike many similar programs, Sudoku Sidekick does NOT require the
Microsoft .NET framework to be installed on your machine.
