We built a Sudoku for people over fifty
By Sara · · 4 min read
Hand a phone Sudoku app to someone over fifty and watch for a minute. They lean in to read the squares. They close an advert after every puzzle. They lose a game to a timer they never asked for, or to a three-mistakes-and-you’re-out rule that turns a quiet hobby into a test. DG Sudoku is the same puzzle without any of that.
What it does differently
- Larger squares, behind a button that says so. One tap enlarges a single 3×3 box; Previous and Next move between boxes. No pinching, and no gesture anyone has to discover by accident.
- Hints that teach. The first tap shows where to look. The second explains, in plain words, why the move works. The number is placed only if you ask — the point is to get better, not to be handed answers.
- Mistakes cost nothing. There are no lives to lose. Easy marks a repeated number as you play; Medium and Hard let you find your own mistakes, and if a full board has one, it says so and Hint takes you to it.
- It remembers where you were. Your puzzle, notes and undo history are saved as you play, and each difficulty keeps its own place, so you can switch and come back.
- No ads, no account, and no internet at all. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to collect.
Numbered levels that climb gently
Easy, Medium and Hard each have 150 numbered levels. They start gently and get a little harder as you go — Easy from 30 empty squares to 41, Medium from 42 to 49, Hard from 50 to 54 — and finishing a level opens the next. Every level is the same puzzle on every phone, so Easy Level 7 is Easy Level 7 for everyone, and friends can compare times. Each one has exactly one solution and can be solved one logical step at a time, which is why Hint can always help, and never has to guess.
When you finish, it tells you how long the puzzle took. The Levels page puts a tick and a time on every level you have finished, and you can play any of them again to beat it. That is as competitive as it gets: there is never a clock on screen while you play, and the times can be switched off.
It never touches the internet.
DG Sudoku does not have permission to use the internet at all. So there is nothing to collect, and nothing is collected: no ads, no analytics, no account, no sign-in. Your progress lives on your phone and nowhere else. It works the same on a flight, in a village with one bar of signal, or with mobile data switched off.
Built to be read, not squinted at
The numbers are big and high-contrast on a calm dark board, and the comfort settings — bigger numbers, highlighting the same number, shading the row, column and box you are working in — are all switched on from the first launch. Nobody should have to find a menu to make an app readable.
On a phone, the number keys, Undo, Erase, Notes and Hint stay fixed at the bottom of the screen, in the same place every time. Your own numbers are cyan and underlined, and on Easy a repeated number is marked with “!”, so nothing depends on telling colours apart. It was checked with the phone’s text set to double size, and every square has a spoken label for screen readers.
Why we build things like this
Designing for people over fifty is not a niche. It is most of the people who call a clinic, walk into a bank branch or deal with a government office. The habits behind DG Sudoku — words on buttons instead of hidden gestures, nothing that relies on colour alone, never punishing a mistake — make any app easier for everyone who uses it. If your customers skew older, that is a conversation worth having.
Get it
DG Sudoku is free on Google Play for Android phones and tablets. The iPhone and iPad version is in App Store review, and its button will appear here the day Apple approves it. The rest of what we build is on the apps page.
Get it on Google Play