AnthonySottile.com

KenSquared - KenKen for Android

What is KenKen?

Similar in gameplay to the popular game Sudoku, KenKen is a puzzle game that involves strategic placing of numbers in a square. The unique aspect of KenKen is the constraints on placing numbers. The game board is divided into regions of squares called cages. For each cage, a number and a mathematical operator are shown and the numbers that you place in that square must, with the given operator, yield the number in the cage. Like Sudoku, the board must be a Latin Square , meaning a number must appear only once in a given row or column. However a number may be present more than once inside a given cage.

The mathematical cage operators include multiplication, division, addidion, and subtraction. Note that in the cages, the numbers may be in any order for the operator. For example (given a 4 x 4 board), the 7+ cage can be either [3][4], or [4][3]. The same goes for division and subtraction. A two square cage on a 4 x 4 board with 2/ could be either [1][2], [2][1], [4][2], or [2][4].

For more information about KenKen, visit Wikipedia or KenKen.com .

Features

• 4 x 4 to 9 x 9 boards
• Randomly generated and unique boards
• Statistics
• Timed games
• Pause and Resume game
• Auto pause
• Allows multiple solutions to ambiguous boards
• Check current board
• Auto eliminate candidates on value choice

Change Log

• 1.0.0 - Initial Release.

Menu Options

Upon pressing the menu button on your device the menu is presented. Use the menu to begin a new game. The menu also allows you to access several other options.

Preferences

In the preferences menu, one can change the size of the game that they are playing. Games can be played anywhere from the easiest size (4 x 4) to the most difficult size (9 x 9). Note that if you are in-game and change the game size, the current game will end.

Statistics

The statistics menu allows you to see your high scores. The game records the number of games you have started, the number of games you have won, your best time, and the average win time for each game size.

Check

In game, the check button allows you to check the progress on the numbers you have selected. Checking though comes with a penalty (15s) and only checks against a single solution board though there may be other possible solutions. Though the check button only checks against a single solution, the game will allow any and all solutions that fit the given cages.

Pause

The pause menu button allows you to pause and resume a game. This will cause the timer to stop ticking. The game will also automatically pause whenever you open any of the other menus and when you navigate away from the game.

Game Controls

The game is controlled by touching a square. When a square is selected. One can set both the potential candidates for the square, as well as setting the value for the square. The candidates can be selected by selecting or unselecting from the top of the screen. Pressing + will apply all of the possible candidates and pressing - will clear all of the candidates selected.

Square value can be set by touching the buttons at the bottom of the screen. Touching a selected value will unset the square. Note that setting a value on a square will automatically unset the candidates of the same value in that square's row and column. Candidates and values that cannot be set because there is already a square with that value in the row or column are shown as disabled.

About the Development

I was initially introduced to KenKen by a friend at school and it instantly became a favorite. The only problem was, at the time KenKen.com had only a very limited set of puzzles that updated very infrequently -- I didn't have a way to have fresh new puzzles all the time. So I decided to write my own version of the game so I could play as many puzzles as I wanted.

I first started writing the application as a desktop application in C#. I spent quite some time developing a methodology for generating puzzles -- I even came up with my own algorithm for generating Latin Squares . After I had a solid playable prototype (I may publish a finished desktop version eventually) I started looking into mobile development.

Having recently acquired an Android phone and noting C#'s similarity to Java, I decided to take a crack at developing an Android application. Within a week I had ported all of the application logic to Java and within two weeks I had a playable mobile application. After some polishing and feature addition (the desktop application lacked pausing, multiple solution detection, more intelligent puzzle generation, and a finished UI among other things), I have this!