I like having the notes because it makes it to where you can see options where it can only be that number, but when under pressure it's easy to miss those things, so honestly notes kinda add to the skill required, as now you have to be able to at a glance figure out based on the notes which one to hit.

I totally agree that the moderation needs to be fixed. I uploaded a run that got approved about a month ago where I unintentionally had a puzzle partially completed per the big problem you were saying. I've now been more intentional about making sure that I finish or restart whatever puzzle I'm doing.

I disagree to using IGT, which is something that was discussed in another thread on here so I won't go into big deets, but basically there's skill involved as there are ways to skip certain animations.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Guessing is allowed but any mistake will invalidate the run in order" because that sounds contradictory. So much of the speedrun is based around figuring out where you have the best odds to make a guess. If there's just two possibilities in a single row, that's a 50-50, which is more compelling than a row with three possibilities. It's the entire core of what the run is.

Ads don't need to be in the ruleset, if you haven't paid to remove ads you add so much time because it becomes soooo laggy.

Requiring to do the Restart ("Abandon Puzzle?") for each category does make sense, as the exploits that you've mentioned are very real. I've known about them, and perhaps other runners have too, but none of us want to use those exploits. They absolutely would ruin the fun if used. This one might be needed but it's not been needed yet thankfully. (Although tbh I'm just assuming that the other players have been acting in integrity, I have no way to confirm).

If you compare Microsoft Sudoku to say Microsoft Solitare for Windows 7, this is an actually competitive and fun thing we got going. I don't think any of us would want to invalidate all of the runs that we already have up there, which some of your suggestions would end up doing.

I think the main questions to ask as we try to nail down rules are "does this ruin the fun" and "do we need to make a rule around this?" We want to promote fun, but realize that this is a Speedrun of a video game. It's not just Sudoku, it's Microsoft Sudoku, so finding ways to exploit the settings a bit by turning on notes just adds to the fun. It's our way of finding glitches to exploit. But yes, some ways we could exploit the game would ruin the fun, namely the mentioned problem with loading in-progress games.

Maybe, so that the current runs aren't invalidated and we don't have to include the restart of all the difficulties during time, we require that they show each category being restarted and they may not linger on the puzzle after hitting reset. I tested out that if you hit restart, you can close the game while its on the loading screen and when you come back in it will have removed your saved puzzle.

Proposal for new rules:

Complete all the boards in "Classic". Time starts when selecting the first board or when hitting "Yes" to reset the board. Time ends when the last number is placed on the last board.

• Video is required.
• All runs need to show game reset for each board before time starts, and the game should be closed before the new puzzle is displayed.
• No solving or viewing a puzzle in any way outside of time.
• Cheats are forbidden.
• Glitches are allowed.

I found where the save data is stored on the device! I will upload a tutorial some time this week when I get a chance, but would we be down with showing the deletion of this file before time starts? It can be verified that the right file was deleted if the "Last Played" indicator is gone.

UPDATE: Every time I delete, it just brings it back down from the cloud. I'm not sure how I originally got it to reset without pulling down the cloud backup. I might experiment with turning internet off and then deleting the file.