Murder Sudoku: Cluegrid

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Inspiration

While looking for my next app idea, I kept coming back to games. I had always wanted to explore game development, and there has also been a big boom of indie game developers on Twitter, which made me even more curious about it.

Since I live in Spain, I started noticing Murdoku becoming more and more popular. A few friends bought the book, and I kept seeing TikToks of people really getting into the puzzles.

When I checked the App Store, I noticed there were not many apps exploring the same idea, so I decided to take the jump and build my own version.

What it does

ClueGrid is a Sudoku style murder mystery game.

Each case gives you a group of suspects, clues, directions and information about where each character was last seen. You use that information together with Sudoku style logic to place the characters correctly on the board.

The goal is to figure out where everyone was and ultimately discover which character was in the same room as the killer.

How we built it

ClueGrid was built natively for iOS using Swift and SwiftUI.

I used Codex and GLM throughout development.

RevenueCat handles the consumables and payment tiers inside the app.

AI was also a big part of the visual process and helped me create the characters and backgrounds that give the game its personality.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was making the suspects, characters and clues feel good together.

It took a lot of iteration to make sure the clues were understandable, the puzzles made sense and each game did not feel too repetitive.

Finding enough variation between cases while keeping the rules consistent was probably one of the most interesting parts of building the game.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am especially proud of the art and overall look of the game.

It took quite some time to get the characters, backgrounds and visual style to a point where everything felt like it belonged together. I am still fixing some small art issues, but overall I am really happy with how it turned out.

It was also refreshing to build something where I could be much more playful with colors, themes and characters than I normally can with utility apps.

What we learned

How to play Sudoku :D

More seriously, building ClueGrid taught me a lot about puzzle design and how small changes in clues or character placement can completely change how a puzzle feels.

I also learned how different building a game feels compared to building a normal app. There is much more focus on pacing, visuals, replayability and making the experience feel fun rather than simply functional.

What's next for Murder Sudoku: ClueGrid

The next step is to see how the game performs in the real world.

I want to experiment with ads, see if the game gets traction and understand how people actually play it.

If players enjoy it, the plan is to keep releasing new missions, adding more cases and continuing to improve the game over time.

Built With

• cloudkit
• swift
• swiftdata
• swiftui