Unusual journey of a lonely knight (chaos construction)
(Published on 16. August 2021, 01:09 by filuta)
I actually posted (a slightly different version of) this puzzle some months ago, but it went completely unnoticed for some time and I decided to deactivate it. It was only when I was solving a fantastic Doppelgangers by Kafkapharnaum which made me realize how versatile penpa+ is and that it would suit this puzzle much better than f-puzzles I used originally. This in turn made me going back to it again and republish it now.
Also, recently there has been published another puzzle featuring knight's tour (albeit not a complete one) by Prutsbeest, which is in my opinion very original and totally amazing.
Last but not least, my huge thanks go to Niverio, who test solved this puzzle (and even live which gave me this unique possibility to see someone solve it and see what works and what doesn't).
Rules:
Standard irregular 8x8 sudoku rules apply, the regions, however, must be deduced by the solver. All regions are orthogonally connected and some region boundaries are already given and must be respected.
Additionally, there is a knight's tour satisfying the following:
-The tour starts and ends in a same region.
-Consecutive steps in the tour belong to different regions.
-Grey numbers indicate steps of the tour.
-For a cell with a circle, its digit is equal to the number of cells of the same region visited by the knight from the start of the tour up to arrival to the circled cell (the circled cell included). Not all circles are given.
Examples (see the figure below):
-The grey number 1 is at r2c5 and so the tour starts there, grey number 9 in r1c6 means that the knight visits this cell on its 9th step of the tour and so on, the tour ends at grey 36 (the position of which must be discovered).
-The starting cell r2c5 contains a circle and therefore must have digit 1 (since the knight couldn't have visited any other cell from its region before).
-The cell r1c6 also contains a circle, it is in the yellow region and since the knight already visited this region on moves 2 and 7 the digit in r1c6 must be 3 (the other visits of the yellow region are 22, 24 and 33 and therefore come later). Note that there could have been circle in every cell in the yellow region.
The penpa+ link for solving the example puzzle if you want to try it is here, it should be about 1-1.5 star difficulty. In the example puzzle you should be able to separately construct the knight's tour (for this you can use the right grid) and then create and solve the sudoku.
Main puzzle:
You can solve it in penpa+ using the following links:
single grid layout (as in the picture above)
double grid layout as in the example puzzle (not necessary, but recommended).
There is also a variant of the two grid layout where the right grid contains also the circles and the given boundaries, which you can find here.
Sudokupad versions:
single grid layout
double grid layout
alternative double grid layout
Solution code: column 5 and row 5 (without a comma or a space)
Comments
on 11. August 2024, 06:43 by Silverstep
This is a phenomenal puzzle - by 2021 standards. I think it would have been 4 stars 5/5 beauty back in the day. Even compared to 2024 puzzles - with all our digital solvers and new theory - I think constructing something like this takes a lot of skill.
on 6. August 2024, 19:25 by Styku
It isbl a very long solve but such interesting and unusual logic that I loved every step of it. Thank you for creating it :)
on 1. June 2024, 09:34 by filuta
added sudokupad links
on 23. May 2024, 19:13 by The Book Wyrm
Nice puzzle!
Pretty interesting and unusual ruleset.
I also agree with PrimeWeasel that this isn't really 5* difficulty - it takes a long time, simply due to the nature of the puzzle, but none of the deductions are that hard.
on 17. March 2024, 16:12 by PrimeWeasel
Great journey! Really not the 5 star it's made out to be though..
on 12. March 2024, 10:45 by filuta
fixed links
on 21. November 2023, 14:20 by Yann
Very inventive ruleset that makes for a fun solve (not overly hard too), thanks !
.............
Thanks a lot!
on 17. November 2023, 12:10 by wullemuus
Very creative combination of the different rulesets all working perfectly together. And by far not as difficult as others of your masterpieces- except that the online versions are invalid in the meantime and I had to solve it on paper ( harder to keep the overview). But because of its capturing nature it was quite fun!
..........
thanks a lot! - also for letting me know the links are broken - I must say, after all that time this one is still my favourite (standard) chaos conctruction of all I made, despite being far from perfect
on 2. June 2023, 21:32 by Kafkapharnaum
I can't say how thrilled I am to count this one in my list of solves, this is just pure art -- I mean, what else is there to say... Quite simply a masterpiece of a construction, and direct to favorites
I do not usually resolve puzzles, but this one I will revisit for sure :D
on 2. July 2022, 11:43 by Vebby
Superb! Enjoyed the creative ruleset very much.
.........
Thank you.
on 16. June 2022, 15:40 by lerroyy
Very nice puzzle! The ruleset was really fun.
Also, I forgot it was an 8x8 and I started drawing 9 cell regions and placing 9 in the grid. So I had to review everything I did lol.
Nonetheless, I really liked it! Thanks Filuta!
.............
Thank you.
on 17. April 2022, 07:20 by thefallenrat
INNNNSSSAAAANNNEEEEEE!!!!!!!
............
haha, thanks
on 2. March 2022, 03:16 by Piatato
What a marvelous construction! Both puzzles are fantastic!
......
Thank you so much!
on 2. February 2022, 09:45 by Mark Sweep
Really enjoyed the region logic this puzzle had to offer!
.......
Thanks a lot, happy you enjoyed it so much.
on 17. January 2022, 19:03 by Steven R
Brilliant construction! I really enjoyed the solve.
...........
oh, thank you so much for the comment (and the discord recommendation too), I'm happy my puzzle brought you so much fun.
on 21. November 2021, 21:56 by marcmees
very nice construction puzzle. loved it.
......
Thanks a lot for such a kind comment, happy you enjoyed it.
on 18. August 2021, 13:52 by Prutsbeest
Wow, what a puzzle! I think it deserves a 5 star rating though because it has taken me two attempts in which I broke the puzzle and had to restart it :-)
Thanks a lot Filuta for giving me a hint, this allowed me to see where I went wrong!
I truly hope that the large ruleset doesn't scare people away and that this puzzle gets sufficient solves to give it a rating, because it's a REALLY nice puzzle, combining several aspects in one.
Congrats on this one!
P.S.: I hope you don't mind I cleaned up our earlier conversations to avoid overloading the comment section..
........
Oh, thank you for your kind words (and the shout out on your puzzle too). I'm happy you liked it and commend your persistence.
on 17. August 2021, 09:48 by henrypijames
Broke the puzzle over and over again before I realized that the step 1 cell doesn't have a circle (as opposed to the step 1 cell in the example).
......
sorry to hear that, but happy you finished it neverherless
on 17. August 2021, 04:52 by bigger
Usually I dodge knight journey (not my taste) But this one has steps like Hidoku. The only difficult part I met is that it's a little hard to find the circle digits. It's so easy to overlook a smaller or larger step number.
..........
Oh I see, I've never heard of Hidoku until today, but I can see the similarities.
on 16. August 2021, 18:45 by filuta
corrected solution code
on 16. August 2021, 18:12 by Jesper
Fun puzzle - enjoyed it a lot! I think you mixed up the solution code description: it says column 5 and row 5, but my solution was only accepted when I entered row 5 before column 5.
...........
oh, thanks a lot, first mixing up green and yellow and now rows and columns, apparently, it's not my day today.
and thank you even more so for your other comment, I'm happy you had fun with the puzzle.
on 16. August 2021, 14:58 by filuta
corrected example
on 16. August 2021, 14:54 by RockyRoer
I think in your "Examples" section you refer to a green region when you mean yellow? The yellow region could contain all circles, but if I understand the rules correctly, green can only be the 1 and 5.
........
Sure, thanks a lot, it should be yellow on all occasions.
on 16. August 2021, 12:58 by filuta
changed difficulty
on 16. August 2021, 02:26 by filuta
minor correction
