Provided by: sgt-puzzles_20170606.272beef-1ubuntu1_amd64 bug

NAME

       sgt-solo - Number placement puzzle

SYNOPSIS

       sgt-solo  [--generate  n]  [--print  wxh [--with-solutions] [--scale n] [--colour]] [game-
       parameters|game-ID|random-seed]

       sgt-solo --version

DESCRIPTION

       You have a square grid, which is divided into as many equally sized sub-blocks as the grid
       has  rows.  Each  square must be filled in with a digit from 1 to the size of the grid, in
       such a way that

             every row contains only one occurrence of each digit

             every column contains only one occurrence of each digit

             every block contains only one occurrence of each digit.

             (optionally, by default off) each of the square's two main diagonals contains  only
              one occurrence of each digit.

       You  are  given some of the numbers as clues; your aim is to place the rest of the numbers
       correctly.

       Under the default settings, the sub-blocks are square or rectangular. The  default  puzzle
       size  is  3×3 (a 9×9 actual grid, divided into nine 3×3 blocks). You can also select sizes
       with rectangular blocks instead of square ones, such as 2×3 (a 6×6 grid divided  into  six
       3×2  blocks).  Alternatively,  you  can  select ‘jigsaw’ mode, in which the sub-blocks are
       arbitrary shapes which differ between individual puzzles.

       Another available mode is ‘killer’. In this mode, clues are  not  given  in  the  form  of
       filled-in  squares;  instead,  the grid is divided into ‘cages’ by coloured lines, and for
       each cage the game tells you what the sum of all the digits in that cage should be.  Also,
       no  digit may appear more than once within a cage, even if the cage crosses the boundaries
       of existing regions.

       If you select a puzzle size which requires more than 9 digits, the additional digits  will
       be  letters  of  the  alphabet. For example, if you select 3×4 then the digits which go in
       your grid will be 1 to 9, plus ‘a’, ‘b’ and  ‘c’.  This  cannot  be  selected  for  killer
       puzzles.

       I  first saw this puzzle in Nikoli (http://www.nikoli.co.jp/en/puzzles/sudoku.html (beware
       of Flash)), although it's also been popularised  by  various  newspapers  under  the  name
       ‘Sudoku’  or  ‘Su Doku’. Howard Garns is considered the inventor of the modern form of the
       puzzle, and it was first published in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games. A more elaborate
       treatment    of    the    history    of   the   puzzle   can   be   found   on   Wikipedia
       (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku).

Solo controls

       To play Solo, simply click the mouse in any empty square and then type a digit  or  letter
       on  the  keyboard  to  fill  that  square.  If  you make a mistake, click the mouse in the
       incorrect square and press Space to clear it again (or use the Undo feature).

       If you right-click in a square and then type a number, that number will be entered in  the
       square  as  a  ‘pencil  mark’.  You can have pencil marks for multiple numbers in the same
       square. Squares containing filled-in numbers cannot also contain pencil marks.

       The game pays no attention to pencil marks, so exactly what you use them for is up to you:
       you  can  use  them as reminders that a particular square needs to be re-examined once you
       know more about a particular number, or you can use them as lists of the possible  numbers
       in a given square, or anything else you feel like.

       To erase a single pencil mark, right-click in the square and type the same number again.

       All pencil marks in a square are erased when you left-click and type a number, or when you
       left-click and press space. Right-clicking and  pressing  space  will  also  erase  pencil
       marks.

       Alternatively,  use  the cursor keys to move the mark around the grid. Pressing the return
       key toggles the mark (from a normal mark to a pencil mark), and  typing  a  number  in  is
       entered  in  the  square in the appropriate way; typing in a 0 or using the space bar will
       clear a filled square.

       (All the actions described below are also available.)

Solo parameters

       Solo allows you to configure two separate dimensions of the  puzzle  grid  on  the  ‘Type’
       menu:  the number of columns, and the number of rows, into which the main grid is divided.
       (The size of a block is the inverse of this: for example, if you select 2  columns  and  3
       rows, each actual block will have 3 columns and 2 rows.)

       If  you  tick the ‘X’ checkbox, Solo will apply the optional extra constraint that the two
       main diagonals of the grid also contain one of every digit. (This is  sometimes  known  as
       ‘Sudoku-X’  in  newspapers.)  In  this mode, the squares on the two main diagonals will be
       shaded slightly so that you know it's enabled.

       If you tick the ‘Jigsaw’ checkbox, Solo will generate randomly shaped sub-blocks. In  this
       mode,  the  actual grid size will be taken to be the product of the numbers entered in the
       ‘Columns’ and ‘Rows’ boxes. There is no reason why you have to enter a number greater than
       1  in  both  boxes;  Jigsaw  mode has no constraint on the grid size, and it can even be a
       prime number if you feel like it.

       If you tick the ‘Killer’ checkbox, Solo will  generate  a  set  of  of  cages,  which  are
       randomly  shaped  and  drawn  in  an  outline of a different colour. Each of these regions
       contains a smaller clue which shows the digit sum of all the squares in this region.

       You can also configure the type of symmetry shown in the generated puzzles. More  symmetry
       makes  the  puzzles  look  prettier  but  may  also  make  them easier, since the symmetry
       constraints can force more clues than  necessary  to  be  present.  Completely  asymmetric
       puzzles have the freedom to contain as few clues as possible.

       Finally,  you can configure the difficulty of the generated puzzles. Difficulty levels are
       judged by the complexity of the techniques of deduction required to solve the puzzle: each
       level  requires  a  mode  of  reasoning  which  was  not necessary in the previous one. In
       particular, on difficulty levels ‘Trivial’ and ‘Basic’ there will be a square you can fill
       in  with a single number at all times, whereas at ‘Intermediate’ level and beyond you will
       have to make partial deductions about the set of squares a number could be in (or the  set
       of  numbers  that could be in a square). At ‘Unreasonable’ level, even this is not enough,
       and you will eventually have to make a guess, and then backtrack if it  turns  out  to  be
       wrong.

       Generating  difficult  puzzles  is  itself  difficult:  if  you  select  one of the higher
       difficulty levels, Solo may have to make many attempts at generating a  puzzle  before  it
       finds one hard enough for you. Be prepared to wait, especially if you have also configured
       a large puzzle size.

Common actions

       These actions are all available from the  ‘Game’  menu  and  via  keyboard  shortcuts,  in
       addition to any game-specific actions.

       (On  Mac  OS X, to conform with local user interface standards, these actions are situated
       on the ‘File’ and ‘Edit’ menus instead.)

       New game (‘N’, Ctrl+‘N’)
              Starts a new game, with a random initial state.

       Restart game
              Resets the current game to its initial state. (This can be undone.)

       Load   Loads a saved game from a file on disk.

       Save   Saves the current state of your game to a file on disk.

              The Load and Save operations preserve your entire game history (so  you  can  save,
              reload, and still Undo and Redo things you had done before saving).

       Print  Where  supported  (currently  only  on Windows), brings up a dialog allowing you to
              print  an  arbitrary  number  of  puzzles  randomly  generated  from  the   current
              parameters,  optionally  including the current puzzle. (Only for puzzles which make
              sense  to  print,  of  course  –  it's  hard  to  think  of  a  sensible  printable
              representation of Fifteen!)

       Undo (‘U’, Ctrl+‘Z’, Ctrl+‘_’)
              Undoes a single move. (You can undo moves back to the start of the session.)

       Redo (‘R’, Ctrl+‘R’)
              Redoes a previously undone move.

       Copy   Copies  the current state of your game to the clipboard in text format, so that you
              can paste it into (say)  an  e-mail  client  or  a  web  message  board  if  you're
              discussing the game with someone else. (Not all games support this feature.)

       Solve  Transforms  the  puzzle instantly into its solved state. For some games (Cube) this
              feature is not supported at all because it is of no particular use. For other games
              (such  as  Pattern),  the  solved state can be used to give you information, if you
              can't see how a solution can exist at all or you want to  know  where  you  made  a
              mistake.  For  still  other  games  (such as Sixteen), automatic solution tells you
              nothing about how to get to the solution, but it does provide a useful way  to  get
              there quickly so that you can experiment with set-piece moves and transformations.

              Some  games  (such as Solo) are capable of solving a game ID you have typed in from
              elsewhere. Other games (such as Rectangles) cannot solve  a  game  ID  they  didn't
              invent  themself,  but when they did invent the game ID they know what the solution
              is already. Still other games (Pattern) can solve some external game IDs, but  only
              if they aren't too difficult.

              The  ‘Solve’  command  adds  the  solved state to the end of the undo chain for the
              puzzle. In other words, if you want to go back to solving it yourself after  seeing
              the answer, you can just press Undo.

       Quit (‘Q’, Ctrl+‘Q’)
              Closes the application entirely.

Specifying games with the game ID

       There  are two ways to save a game specification out of a puzzle and recreate it later, or
       recreate it in somebody else's copy of the same puzzle.

       The ‘Specific’ and ‘Random Seed’ options from the ‘Game’ menu (or the ‘File’ menu, on  Mac
       OS X) each show a piece of text (a ‘game ID’) which is sufficient to reconstruct precisely
       the same game at a later date.

       You can enter either of these  pieces  of  text  back  into  the  program  (via  the  same
       ‘Specific’  or ‘Random Seed’ menu options) at a later point, and it will recreate the same
       game. You can also use either one as a command line argument (on  Windows  or  Unix);  see
       below for more detail.

       The  difference  between  the  two  forms  is  that  a  descriptive  game  ID is a literal
       description of the initial state of the game, whereas a random seed is  just  a  piece  of
       arbitrary  text  which was provided as input to the random number generator used to create
       the puzzle. This means that:

             Descriptive game IDs tend to be longer in many puzzles (although some, such as Cube
              (sgt-cube(6)),  only  need  very  short  descriptions). So a random seed is often a
              quicker way to note down the puzzle you're currently playing,  or  to  tell  it  to
              somebody else so they can play the same one as you.

             Any  text  at  all  is  a  valid  random seed. The automatically generated ones are
              fifteen-digit numbers, but anything will do; you can type in your full name,  or  a
              word  you just made up, and a valid puzzle will be generated from it. This provides
              a way for two or more people to race to complete the same puzzle: you  think  of  a
              random  seed,  then  everybody  types  it  in  at  the same time, and nobody has an
              advantage due to having seen the generated puzzle before anybody else.

             It is often possible to convert puzzles from other sources (such as ‘nonograms’  or
              ‘sudoku’  from  newspapers)  into  descriptive game IDs suitable for use with these
              programs.

             Random seeds are not guaranteed to produce the same result if you use them  with  a
              different  version  of the puzzle program. This is because the generation algorithm
              might have been improved or modified in  later  versions  of  the  code,  and  will
              therefore  produce  a  different  result  when  given  the  same sequence of random
              numbers. Use a descriptive game ID if you aren't sure that it will be used  on  the
              same version of the program as yours.

              (Use  the  ‘About’  menu  option  to  find  out  the version number of the program.
              Programs with the same version number running on different platforms  should  still
              be random-seed compatible.)

       A  descriptive  game  ID  starts  with a piece of text which encodes the parameters of the
       current game (such as grid size). Then there is a colon, and after that is the description
       of the game's initial state. A random seed starts with a similar string of parameters, but
       then it contains a hash sign followed by arbitrary data.

       If you enter a descriptive game ID, the program will not be able to show  you  the  random
       seed  which  generated  it,  since  it wasn't generated from a random seed. If you enter a
       random seed, however, the program will be able to show you the descriptive game ID derived
       from that random seed.

       Note  that  the game parameter strings are not always identical between the two forms. For
       some games, there will be parameter data provided  with  the  random  seed  which  is  not
       included  in  the  descriptive game ID. This is because that parameter information is only
       relevant when generating puzzle grids, and is not important when playing them.  Thus,  for
       example, the difficulty level in Solo (above) is not mentioned in the descriptive game ID.

       These  additional  parameters  are  also not set permanently if you type in a game ID. For
       example, suppose you have Solo set to ‘Advanced’ difficulty level, and then a friend wants
       your  help  with  a  ‘Trivial’  puzzle;  so  the friend reads out a random seed specifying
       ‘Trivial’ difficulty, and you type it in. The program will generate you the same ‘Trivial’
       grid  which  your  friend  was having trouble with, but once you have finished playing it,
       when you ask for a new game it will automatically go back  to  the  ‘Advanced’  difficulty
       which it was previously set on.

The ‘Type’ menu

       The  ‘Type’ menu, if present, may contain a list of preset game settings. Selecting one of
       these will start a new random game with the parameters specified.

       The ‘Type’ menu may also contain a ‘Custom’ option which  allows  you  to  fine-tune  game
       parameters.  The  parameters  available are specific to each game and are described in the
       following sections.

Specifying game parameters on the command line

       (This section does not apply to the Mac OS X version.)

       The games in this collection deliberately do not ever save information on to the  computer
       they  run  on: they have no high score tables and no saved preferences. (This is because I
       expect at least some people  to  play  them  at  work,  and  those  people  will  probably
       appreciate leaving as little evidence as possible!)

       However,  if  you do want to arrange for one of these games to default to a particular set
       of parameters, you can specify them on the command line.

       The easiest way to do this is to set up the parameters you want using the ‘Type’ menu (see
       above),  and  then to select ‘Random Seed’ from the ‘Game’ or ‘File’ menu (see above). The
       text in the ‘Game ID’ box will be composed of two parts, separated by a hash. The first of
       these parts represents the game parameters (the size of the playing area, for example, and
       anything else you set using the ‘Type’ menu).

       If you run the game with just that parameter text on the command line, it  will  start  up
       with the settings you specified.

       For  example: if you run Cube (see sgt-cube(6)), select ‘Octahedron’ from the ‘Type’ menu,
       and  then  go  to  the  game  ID  selection,  you  will  see  a   string   of   the   form
       ‘o2x2#338686542711620’.  Take  only the part before the hash (‘o2x2’), and start Cube with
       that text on the command line: ‘sgt-cube o2x2’.

       If you copy the entire game ID on to the command line, the  game  will  start  up  in  the
       specific  game  that  was described. This is occasionally a more convenient way to start a
       particular game ID than by pasting it into the game ID selection box.

       (You could also retrieve the encoded game parameters  using  the  ‘Specific’  menu  option
       instead of ‘Random Seed’, but if you do then some options, such as the difficulty level in
       Solo, will be missing. See above for more details on this.)

Unix command-line options

       (This section only applies to the Unix port.)

       In addition to being able to specify game parameters on  the  command  line  (see  above),
       there are various other options:

       --game

       --load These  options  respectively determine whether the command-line argument is treated
              as specifying game parameters or a save file to load. Only one should be specified.
              If  neither  of  these options is specified, a guess is made based on the format of
              the argument.

       --generate n
              If this option is specified, instead of a  puzzle  being  displayed,  a  number  of
              descriptive  game  IDs  will  be  invented  and printed on standard output. This is
              useful for gaining access to the game  generation  algorithms  without  necessarily
              using the frontend.

              If game parameters are specified on the command-line, they will be used to generate
              the game IDs; otherwise a default set of parameters will be used.

              The most common use of this option is in conjunction with --print,  in  which  case
              its behaviour is slightly different; see below.

       --print wxh
              If  this  option  is  specified,  instead  of  a  puzzle being displayed, a printed
              representation of one or more unsolved puzzles  is  sent  to  standard  output,  in
              PostScript format.

              On  each  page  of  puzzles,  there  will be w across and h down. If there are more
              puzzles than w×h, more than one page will be printed.

              If --generate has also been specified, the  invented  game  IDs  will  be  used  to
              generate  the printed output. Otherwise, a list of game IDs is expected on standard
              input (which can be descriptive or random seeds; see above),  in  the  same  format
              produced by --generate.

              For example:

              sgt-net --generate 12 --print 2x3 7x7w | lpr

              will  generate  two  pages  of  printed  Net puzzles (each of which will have a 7×7
              wrapping grid), and pipe the output to the lpr command, which on many systems  will
              send them to an actual printer.

              There are various other options which affect printing; see below.

       --save file-prefix [ --save-suffix file-suffix ]
              If  this option is specified, instead of a puzzle being displayed, saved-game files
              for one or more unsolved puzzles are written to files constructed from the supplied
              prefix and/or suffix.

              If  --generate  has  also  been  specified,  the  invented game IDs will be used to
              generate the printed output. Otherwise, a list of game IDs is expected on  standard
              input  (which  can  be  descriptive or random seeds; see above), in the same format
              produced by --generate.

              For example:

              sgt-net --generate 12 --save game --save-suffix .sav

              will generate twelve Net saved-game files with the names game0.sav to game11.sav.

       --version
              Prints version information about the game, and then quits.

       The following options are only meaningful if --print is also specified:

       --with-solutions
              The set of pages filled with unsolved puzzles will be followed by the solutions  to
              those puzzles.

       --scale n
              Adjusts  how  big  each puzzle is when printed. Larger numbers make puzzles bigger;
              the default is 1.0.

       --colour
              Puzzles will be printed in colour, rather than in black and white (if supported  by
              the puzzle).

SEE ALSO

       Full documentation in /usr/share/doc/sgt-puzzles/puzzles.txt.gz.