What I've been up to
It's been over 2 months since last Dev Log, I'm still working on the game in this period of time. I'm going to give you a bit information on recent plans and progress.
Because the two new major features I'm working on are difficult, the next version may be released in July 2024 at the earliest. If you want to purchase the game after these features come out, you can add the game to your wishlist now.
The first major feature I'm working on is Campaigns and Campaign Editor. Campaigns are basically small books that uses text, pictures and exercise puzzles to help you learn Sudoku and do related exercises.
In addition to writing one or more official Campaigns, I plan to provide a Campaign Editor. This will allow players to create custom campaigns and make them available to other players through the Steam Workshop.
The other major feature I'm working on is Sudoku Paint. As mentioned earlier, campaigns are like small books, and Sudoku books need a way to provide easy-to-understand pictures that contain explanations of Sudoku examples.
So, I am developing a Paint feature. It allows players to quickly draw Sudoku related pictures. These pictures will be able to be easily embedded in campaigns.
At present, the framework for Sudoku Paint is completed, and more painting tools will be added in the near future to help players to draw informative pictures.
The Campaign Editor is still in the early development stage, so no screenshots will be revealed for the time being. Only screenshots of the campaign gameplay and the primitive Sudoku Paint feature will be revealed below.
Campaigns
Campaigns (in development, features and interface are subject to change, Campaigns is not Campaign Editor):
Below is a screenshot of a level, which can be interpreted as a chapter of the book. It will then contain multiple practice problems (only one practice problem is included in the illustration, it will be changed to multiple later).
The image does not contain the ability to embed images, but this feature will be added to the campaign system soon.
Sudoku Paint
Sudoku Paint (in development, features and interface are subject to change, more features are being added):
Currently there is only the Rectangle tool. Later on, the Sudoku Board tool will be added for drawing the contents of Sudoku puzzles. The Line tool and Text tool will also be added.
Plan
The current plan is to finish the Campaign Editor as well as the Sudoku Paint before releasing the next version. So this could take 2-3 months.
I will work on Multiplayer after both Sudoku Paint and the Campaign Editor have been completed.
Early Access expected development time has been adjusted from about 1 year to about 2 years. This is mainly because the previous plan did not include Campaign Editor, Sudoku Paint and some other features.