Killer Sudoku Solver app (Prototype)

!!Broken at present. Fixing in a seperate project but delayed due to course work.

Feel free to contribute @https://github.com/timm167/react-sudoku-builder

How to use

Use the link https://timm167.github.io/killer-sudoku/ to access. For Backend... The free render web-service struggles to perform the recusrsion, it is best to run locally.

For local deployment see instructions at the bottom of this file.

• Click a cell to add a value to it.
• To add the 'killer' Sudoku boxes, click killer mode.
• In the app 'box' refers to the boxes in killer Sudoku that must add up to a declared Sum.
• You can create a box using New Box button.
• You can declare it's sum using Set Box Total.
• Once every cell is in a box, and you have set values for the cells you wish to declare, press Solve Puzzle to solve it.
• To test without building your own Sudoku, just reset and press Test Puzzle then Solve Puzzle.

Why I built it

I built this project for two main reasons.

1. I love Killer Sudoku
2. I wanted to learn Depth-First-Search

This was my first time using Flask, Deploying in Render, Building recursive algorithms in a project, Managing complex state without React, and dealing with a bunch of other challenges I didn't anticipate.

It's unfinished due to a number of minor bugs in the frontend and a backend that could find solutions in much fewer recursions. I am sure a simpler solution was possible but the point was to learn recursions :)

About

A RESTful API for solving Killer Sudoku puzzles. This project provides a way to send a Sudoku puzzle in a specific format (grid and boxes) and receive a solution (if solvable) or an error message.

It uses Flask as the backend framework and should currently be deployed on Render.

The backend uses a recursive depth-first-search to try different combinations with particular constraints.

The frontend has it's own logic to validate user inputs on a basic level. The call to solve the sudoku activate the intensive logic in python.

Feel free to make pull requests, I will be making improvements over time.

Features

• Reactive front end (not React)
• Lets you create a killer Sudoku puzzle within Killer Sudoku Rules and send it to the server
• Server solves Killer Sudoku puzzles
• Returns solvability status and solution grid
• CORS enabled for cross-origin requests

Tech Stack

Backend

• Python 3.x
• Flask
• Flask-CORS
• Gunicorn (for production deployment)
• Render (for deployment)

Frontend

• JavaScript

Local Deployment

Follow these instructions or copy/paste the code below them into your terminal.

1. In your command line run git clone https://github.com/timm167/killer-sudoku.git
2. CD into the app cd killer-sudoku
3. Run python3 -m venv .venv to start the virtual environment
4. Run source .venv/bin/activate (Mac) or .venv\Scripts\activate (Windows) to activate the virtual environment
5. Run pip install -r requirements.txt to install requirements
6. Run python app.py to run the app
7. Head to https://timm167.github.io/killer-sudoku/

Windows

git clone https://github.com/timm167/killer-sudoku.git
cd killer-sudoku
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python app.py

https://timm167.github.io/killer-sudoku/

Mac

git clone https://github.com/timm167/killer-sudoku.git
cd killer-sudoku
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python app.py

https://timm167.github.io/killer-sudoku/