This is a small tool to help with solving sudoku. Currently there is only a tool to help solve killer cages, but in the future I might expand to other styles of sudoku. You can find the tool on sudoku.aslak.io.
When solving killer cage sudoku you are looking at different combinations of numbers, and ruling them out or in. I don't think I'll ever memorize them all, so then it is useful to have lists of the possible combinations. These lists are available on other websites such as godoku. However these websites are just big lists, that can be annoying to scan through. The sudoku apps might have a built-in tools for cages, that also account for removing combinations that aren't relevant due to cage size, totals or numbers that have to be included or not included. These tools are usually great, but in most apps they only trigger if there is an actual sudoku cage involved. And many times you might have other "killer-cage-like" constructions that they don't show up for. So then I needed a good tool to see these combinations, and hence this tool.
Killer cages are a advanced sudoku rule that includes a marked region (the cage), sometimes with a cage total listed. Normally the rules are that the cage must sum to the cage total, and that numbers can't be repeated within the cage, even if it could be by normal sudoku rules.
I heartily recommend any sudoku-curious or sudoku-passionate to take a look at the youtube channel Cracking the Cryptic. These guys solve, and surface fantastic puzzles every day. In the descriptions of the videos they link to a website / app where you can solve the featured puzzle.
My two favorite sudoku apps are Sven's sudoku app and The cracking the cryptic app found at apple, google.
Sven's sudoku pad is the app where you can solve the puzzles from the CtC videos. It comes with a handful of puzzles, but the real juice is to add puzzles from the videos posted every day.
The Cracking the Cryptic app is an app where the CtC guys directly deliver puzzles. Here you get a larger set of puzzles, and you can buy more packs when you run out.
All the puzzles in both apps are hand-set by puzzle setters, so no machine generated puzzles. They all have satisfying logic, and no guessing. Most of the puzzles are also so called "Advanced Sudoku" which doens't necessarily mean that they are harder, it just means that they have rules beyond the traditional sudoku rules.
I would love contributions to my sudoku tools. The killer cage tool was made quickly to solve a problem I had, and there are certainly improvements that could be made. Other than the killer cages, there are other combinations or tools that might be useful. For example it could be handy to have the combinations for Sandwich sudoku