Pros: some features good for learning, can play without CD inserted, supports notes
Cons: ridiculously easy puzzles, poor user interface, full screen only
The Bottom Line: If you have a choice between this and nothing, I'd go ahead and get The Kakuro Code. If you have other options available I'd try them instead.
I've been solving cross sums most of my life. My dad and I used to fight over which of us got first crack at the handful of puzzles we got in the various puzzle magazines we bought. Back in those days you were lucky to find a magazine with four cross sums, so we never had enough of them to make either of us happy. These days, cross sums are a bit easier to find, often under the name kakuro.
For those of you unfamiliar with cross sums or kakuro, they are essentially crossword puzzles with numbers instead of words. Rather than getting clues - definitions - that lead to words - a set pattern of letters - you get clues - the sum of all digits - that lead to numbers - a set pattern of digits. As with sudoku puzzles, individual squares in a puzzles can contain any digit from one to nine and no number in that sequence can be used more than once in any horizontal or vertical section of the puzzle. For example, if you have a three digit answer that adds to 24, the three squares must contain a seven, an eight, and a nine in some order.
Kakuro was introduced to the general public as an offshoot of the ongoing sudoku craze, but unfortunately the more difficult puzzles didn't catch on as strongly as their simpler cousins. A year ago, kakuro books and even a Dell magazine title consisting solely of cross sums were sold in most of the standard sales outlets for such things. While that magazine is no longer published and new books are scarce, the puzzles are still easier to find than they were five years ago. For one thing, books and games released during the height of the kakuro push are generally still available today.
I recently tried one of those games, a Windows title called The Kakuro Code. While it's nice to have a large supply of cross sums read to hand, I can't say I'm thrilled with this specific software package.
The Kakuro Code comes on a CD but fully installs on your computer; you will not need the CD to play after you install the software. I like that a lot as it allows me to play with a concert DVD or a music CD playing in the background. The program officially requires a 700 MHz or faster Pentium III processor (or compatible), 128 MB of RAM, 800MB of space on your hard drive, DirectX 9.0 and compatible video and sound cards, and Windows 98, ME, or XP but I've been playing it on Windows Vista with no problems.
The Kakuro Code comes with "an infinite supply of puzzles" in four difficulty levels as well as an option to create your own puzzles or enter puzzles originating from other sources. I'm not sure whether this program actually generates new puzzles from scratch (and thus really does have an infinite supply of puzzles) or just has a very large supply of puzzles on hand from the start. It seems like it would be difficult to generate a reasonable algorithm for workable computer-generated puzzles, but I can't swear that it's not possible.
One argument in favor of computer generated puzzles is the simplicity of the puzzles. All of these puzzles are small compared to the cross sum puzzles you'll find in magazines and in most of the books I've seen; even the largest of the puzzles here are only 8x13 squares and puzzles that large are rare even in the most difficult level. The easier levels have much smaller puzzles, some consisting of as few as six sets of numbers in the entire puzzle.
The Kakuro Code has four levels of difficulty. Easy puzzles can all be solved at a glance, featuring many clues with only one possible set of numbers (like the three square 24 used as an example above) and often intersects them so that only one number is possible in several squares of the puzzle right off the bat. These puzzles also include two or three starting numbers which make them even easier. These puzzles might be a decent teaching tool for the first four or five puzzles for someone who's never solved a cross sum puzzle before, but I can't imagine anyone being happy solving them for any length of time.
The medium puzzles are not significantly harder. Rather, they have no numbers filled in at the start to make the puzzles slightly more difficult than the easy puzzles. These puzzles can still be solved without any thought or effort and should bore most people rather quickly.
The hard puzzles are a little bit larger and sometimes require a bit of cross checking between vertical and horizontal clues, but they can still all be solved easily without notes. I would consider these equivalent to the easiest puzzles I've ever encountered in puzzle books and magazines, but few of those titles bother presenting puzzles this easy. Those that do still use larger puzzles so they still offer a bit more solving fun than these do.
The devilish puzzles here are really the only ones worth solving in my opinion. They're still fairly easy as these things go, but they at least can't easily be solved just by glancing at the puzzles. Cross checking is definitely required, sometimes a couple of levels deep, and I do write in available numbers in some squares then return to them later in the solving process.
As alluded to above, The Kakuro Code provides a note taking mode which allows you to write in possible values for a square rather than enter a specific number as a final answer. This is very helpful, but it could be implemented better. Switching between modes requires clicking on a button on the far right hand of the screen; I find that tedious at best. The notes you enter are completely user managed and are not updated when you solve other squares in the same clue sequence. That means if you determine that a particular square is an 8 you have to manually delete the 8 from the possible values of all other squares in the same vertical and horizontal section of the puzzle. This is very irritating and should not be necessary.
Buttons on the right also allow you to print or email puzzles (I've not gotten the email feature to work), clear a puzzle to start over, see the solution to a puzzle, get a hint, and perform a few other similar tasks. Printing is a nice feature if you plan to travel without a laptop or just want something to do on a bus or train where laptop play is difficult but I haven't really used the feature myself. I've had no need of hints or starting over and I'm not a big fan of such options in games in general, but I could see both of these options being helpful during the learning process. Otherwise, the only option you'll likely use with any regularity are the buttons that toggle you between notes and solution modes.
The Kakuro Code keeps a high score table, but it's based on the total point value of each user rather than any sort of least time solution of individual puzzles. Puzzles are timed, though, and a suggested solution time provided for each new puzzle. Those times are ridiculously long. Most of the devilish puzzles have suggested times between 30-50 minutes and I've only run into one puzzle that took longer than six minutes so far. Easy and medium puzzles usually take me less than 30 seconds and hard puzzles around one or two minutes but they're all slated for at least several minutes of solving time. If you play against the clock, play against yourself and not their times.
You can solve individual puzzles more than once. After you've solved a puzzle it appears in a list headed by options for new puzzles in each difficulty level. Your current best time for each puzzle is included if you want to try again to beat that time. That's another option that might be nice for newcomers to cross sums but isn't something I'm likely to use unless I run out of new puzzles or, for some reason, had an unexpected problem with a specific puzzle.
I haven't tried entering other puzzles into the puzzle solver included with The Kakuro Code, in part because I don't have any unsolved paper puzzles on hand at the moment but also because the process looks very complex. The solver also only supports grids up to 15x15 and many puzzles out there are larger than that. I'm not ruling out the possibility of trying this feature at some point in the future, but I wouldn't buy this software as a mechanism for turning reams of paper puzzles into electronic puzzles unless you have a lot of time and patience on your hands.
The Kakuro Code has several features that might help someone learn how to solve cross sums, but there isn't a lot here for experienced solvers. The so-called devilish puzzles are quite easy and the puzzles in easier levels are ridiculously simple. I also find the user interface here needlessly complex and, in several places, irritating to use. If you have a choice between The Kakuro Code and no electronic cross sums application, I'd go ahead and get The Kakuro Code. If you have other options available I'd try them instead.
The newest puzzle craze from Japan! It's crosswords with a twist! All new, addictive brain teaser!, Platforms: Windows XP, ESRB Rating: EveryoneMore at Amazon Marketplace
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