Project note
Sudoku Personal Trainer
A teaching app where the main work was making Sudoku deductions explainable, accessible, and usable on a phone rather than simply generating puzzles.
Context
Sudoku Personal Trainer followed a different question from the multiplayer game: how could a person learn to recognize a solving technique without being penalized for getting it wrong? The app needed to make the reasoning behind each placement visible.
Approach
I used Codex to develop an offline teaching system with separate Learn, Practice, and Free Play modes. Learn and Practice use curated boards and deterministic targets, while Free Play uses generated puzzles. Each lesson pairs visible narration with board cues and optional, progressive help.
What happened
The current app teaches Naked Single and Hidden Single techniques through guided lessons, focused practice examples, and penalty-free free play. It also established a reusable structure for adding further techniques without changing the teaching model.
Working with AI
Codex supported the implementation, but the teaching rules needed to be explicit. I defined the constraints that mattered most: incorrect choices should lead to explanation rather than elimination, narration should remain visible as text, and visual cues should not rely on color alone.
Key details
- Learn and Practice use curated boards with deterministic teaching targets.
- Practice offers a progressive hint ladder instead of counting mistakes against the player.
- Visible cue keys and narration make the teaching cues usable without relying on color alone.
Tools and method
The application uses TypeScript, React, Vite, and Capacitor for its iOS shell. Sudoku rules and deduction logic remain separate from React components, while lesson boards, prompts, and targets are committed and validated as content.
Lessons learned
An educational interface needs a stronger content model than a general game screen. When the technique, evidence, target, and explanation are defined separately, it becomes easier to test whether a lesson is actually teaching the intended idea.
Limitations
The curriculum currently covers two techniques, and the product still needs broader device testing and more learning content before it can be treated as a complete training program.
Next step
Add further techniques using the same validated lesson model and continue testing the iOS experience at accessibility text sizes.