Cracking the Cryptic news & patch notes

April 9th, 2026 1.2.35 CTC Worms - Blobz Blobz’ worm consists of 12 6x6 puzzles each featuring a different set of variants, many of which are making their first appearance in our games!

September 16th, 2025 1.2.29 CTC Worms - Michael Lefkowitz Michael’s worm consists of nine 6x6 puzzles, connected by a unique and intriguing line constraint, as well as digits between the puzzles. CTC Worms - Phistomefel Phistomefel’s challenging worm consists of six puzzles of differing sizes, with some very innovative constraints! Pen Tool Overhaul We have overhauled the pen tool. Now when you select the pen tool, you will be able to toggle between three sub tools: highlighter, stamps and line drawing. The highlighter now has an option to switch between 5 palettes and we have added a 10th color option, clear! The stamp tool has 6 different stamps that you can apply to cells and you can choose between black, red and blue stamps. You can toggle stamps to always be visible or to be hidden once a number has been entered into the cell. The line drawing tool allows you to draw lines on the grid. Select a color and drag across cells to draw the line. Redraw over an existing line to erase it. You can choose between 9 line colors based on the palette you selected for the highlighter. You can also toggle between drawing lines from the center of cells or along the edges of cells. Other Changes • Number buttons are now faded after entering a number six times on a six by six grid.

June 11th, 2025 1.2.26-1.2.28 Marty's Worm Update • Fixed a visual UI bug. • Updated the rules to make them more clear. • Updated the puzzle preview for Marty's worm - puzzle #3 to clearly separate two renbans from each other.

June 4th, 2025 1.2.25 Introducing CTC Worms! Cracking The Cryptic is thrilled to introduce Sudoku Worms - small collections of sudoku puzzles, each from one of the World's most respected setters. Every Worm is a series of connected 6x6 or 9x9 sudokus where finishing one puzzle will give you one or more digits to use at the start of the next puzzle, and so on! Trying to finish all the puzzles in a Worm feels like a quest so good luck :) Marty Sears' worm consists of nine 6x6 puzzles - each using a new "glow-worm" constraint! James Sinclair's worm consists of six 9x9 puzzles, each using a different standard constraint! More worms coming soon!

April 3rd, 2025 1.2.24 Fog of War Pack 5 new puzzles! All puzzles are out now! Changes • Clarified rules for Fog #44.

March 10th, 2025 1.2.23 Fog of War Pack 5 new puzzles!

January 29th, 2025 1.2.21 Fog of War Pack 5 new puzzles!

December 21st, 2024 1.2.19 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We've added two Christmas puzzles to our bonus Holiday 2024 pack! Fog of War Pack 5 new puzzles! Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles! All puzzles are out now! Fog Clarity Updates • X's and V's now have colored backgrounds to differentiate them. • Increased the thickness of thermometers. • Removed "if given" from the Killer ruleset for Killer puzzles that don't feature hidden sum cages.

November 8th, 2024 1.2.18 Fog of War Pack Out Now! Our long requested Fog of War pack is out now! Containing 50 puzzles (30 available now, 20 more releasing over the next few months) by some of the keenest minds and cleverest constructors there are. The sheer variety of uses of fog in this pack will amaze you. In Fog Sudoku, some (or even all) of the grid is covered in a fog to begin with – and placing correct digits then clears some of the fog, allowing further clues to emerge. This pack is designed for all skill levels, with beginner and intermediate players being able to solve a large percentage of the puzzles. Enjoy!

November 4th, 2024 1.2.17 Cracking the Cryptic Approachable Sudoku 10 new puzzles! All puzzles are out now! Bug Fix • Removed the calculator button for puzzles that have it disabled on mobile

October 28th, 2024 1.2.15 Happy Halloween! We've added two Halloween puzzles to our bonus Holiday 2024 pack! Fog Pack Coming Soon Our long requested Fog Sudoku pack will be released very soon! Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles!

September 17th, 2024 1.2.14 Cracking the Cryptic Approachable Sudoku 10 new puzzles! Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles! Updated Hints • Updated hints for Squares by Cracking the Cryptic

August 15th, 2024 1.2.13 New Approachable Pack Out Now! Cracking the Cryptic Approachable Sudoku is a collection of 30 puzzles (with 20 more coming soon) spanning a huge variety of variants. Each puzzle is designed to showcase a unique aspect of one or more variants. These puzzles are intended to take between 5 and 20 minutes to solve and are perfect for beginners and experts alike! Good luck! Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles!

June 25th, 2024 1.2.12 Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles! Updated Hints • Updated hints for Sumset by Qodec

May 30th, 2024 1.2.10 Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles! Fixes • Fixed the rules in puzzle #59 in GAS Volume #1 • Fixed the hints in puzzle #69 in the Lines pack

May 1st, 2024 1.2.9 Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles! UI Fix We made the text in the Easter Bunny bonus level clearly visible in dark mode.

March 28th, 2024 1.2.8 Happy Easter! We've added two Easter puzzles to our bonus Holiday 2024 pack! Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles!

February 13th, 2024 1.2.5 Bonus Holiday Pack We're excited to launch our first bonus pack, the Holiday 2024 pack! This pack is unlocked by purchasing any of our premium packs and launches with 2 puzzles celebrating Valentine's Day. We plan on updating the Holiday 2024 pack throughout the year. Enjoy! Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles!

January 31st, 2024 1.2.3 Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles!

December 13th, 2023 1.2.2 Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles! Replay Puzzles with Hollow Stars We've added an option to apply hollow stars to puzzle packs which replaces filled in stars with empty outlines. Completing a puzzle again will re-fill the stars allowing you to easily keep track of which puzzles you have replayed without erasing your progress. Go to Settings -> Progress to apply hollow stars to puzzle packs that you want to replay.

November 2nd, 2023 1.2.0 Lines Variety Pack 5 new puzzles! Massive Battery Saver Improvements Battery Saver mode has been completely overhauled to greatly reduce calls to the GPU and CPU. Battery Saver mode is on by default on mobile and can be toggled on or off under Settings → Gameplay → Performance. It is recommended that PC players turn Battery Saver mode on if playing on a laptop. Note that animated backgrounds are disabled when Battery Saver mode is active.

October 2nd, 2023 1.1.15 Lines Variety Pack Welcome to the long anticipated Lines Variety Pack! Various types of line sudoku have been evolving in the last few years and have become incredibly popular. They have created increasingly inventive puzzle types, which has contributed to making variant sudoku such an increasing pleasure to solve. Our pack features a wide selection of different line types, including: Region Sum Lines, Renban, German Whispers, Palindrome, Between Line, Entropic, Modular and more! We are launching with 40 puzzles with 60 more coming in future updates! Enjoy! Domino Sudoku 5 more puzzles are available now! All 100 puzzles are now released, thank you for playing Domino Sudoku! Bug Fixes • Fixed a typo, sorry Philip!

August 9th, 2023 1.1.13 Domino Sudoku To close out the pack, we are bringing you 10 new puzzles by 10 new authors! 5 puzzles are available now with the final 5 puzzles coming next month! Bug Fixes • Fixed a bug causing some partial kropki puzzles to be incorrectly labeled as full kropki puzzles on the rules screen. Coming Soon A new variety pack featuring many different types of lines!

July 15th, 2023 1.1.12 Domino Sudoku 5 more puzzles are available now! GAS Volume #2 10 more GAS puzzles added to the pack by Philip Newman! All 60 puzzles are now released! Coming Soon A new variety pack featuring many different types of lines!

May 31st, 2023 1.1.11 Domino Sudoku 5 more puzzles are available now! GAS Volume #2 10 more GAS puzzles added to the pack by Clover! Coming Soon A new variety pack featuring many different types of lines!

May 4th, 2023 1.1.10 Domino Sudoku 5 more puzzles are available now! GAS Volume #2 10 more GAS puzzles added to the pack by Bill Murphy! Sandwich Sudoku QOL Update • Added puzzle specific UI buttons for sandwich variants

March 24, 2023 1.1.9 GAS Volume #2 is out now! Volume #2 features puzzles by Clover, Philip Newman and Bill Murphy! 30 puzzles are available now with 30 more being added over the next few months. GAS puzzles are designed to take between 5 and 20 minutes to solve and each features an interesting twist on the classic sudoku. These are perfect for beginners and experts alike. Experienced solvers can race against the clock to earn party hats! You’ll get two party hats for a really fast (Expert) time; one party hat for a fast time and one dinosaur for managing to solve the puzzle. So you’ll be able to track your improvement as a solver as you work through all the puzzles. Good luck! Domino Sudoku 5 more puzzles are available now!

January 31, 2023 1.1.8 Domino Sudoku 5 more puzzles are available now! GAS Pack 10 more GAS puzzles added to the pack by Sam Cappleman-Lynes! All 60 puzzles are now released! We've made a number of changes and improvements in the GAS spirit: • Increased the text size in Quadruple clues. • Party hat times are now hidden until completing the puzzle. • Party hat times are now shown on the win screen. • Changed GAS party hats/dinosaurs counter to only include the best reward per puzzle. • Previously, getting two party hats would also count for one party hat and dinosaur. Coming Soon GAS Volume #2 is coming soon!