Inception
(Published on 3. February 2022, 20:23 by matt383)
Well, how about a puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle?
Don't be alarmed by the ludicrous amount of rules! This is a Star Battle in a Killer Sudoku in a Nurikabe in an Akari in a Hitori. All rules are standard and the individual puzzles are meant to be solvable even if you've never tried the given variant.
- Shade the grid by standard Hitori rules using the pencil marks as clues.
- Use the shaded cells' pencil marks as clues to shade the grid by standard Akari rules. If a shaded cell contains a pencil mark greater than 4, it acts as a 0 for Akari.
- If a cell contains a light bulb and it's corner mark is not 8 or 9, its pencil mark can be placed in the grid as part of the solution.
- Shade the grid by standard Nurikabe rules using the placed numbers as clues. (The pencil marks on shaded "water" Nurikabe cells are no longer needed.)
- Solve the grid as a standard Killer Sudoku where the cages are the Nurikabe islands, and the sum of the digits in the cage equals to the sum of the corner pencil marks in that cage. (The previously placed numbers remain in the grid.)
- In the solved Killer Sudoku, place 2 stars in every row, column and 3 by 3 region according to standard Star Battle rules. Cells with 4 or 5 must not contain stars.
Here's a little example on how a puzzle like this might be solved:
In depth explanation of the variant rules
Feel free to skip this part if you're familiar with the variants.
Hitori
Shade some of the cells in the grid according to the following rules:
- No row or column can have more than one occurrence of any given number.
- Shaded cells cannot be horizontally or vertically adjacent, although they can be diagonal to one another.
- The remaining numbered cells must be all connected to each other, horizontally or vertically.
Akari
Place light bulbs in the grid according to the following rules:
- Light bulbs may be placed in any of the unshaded cells.
- The numbers in the shaded cells show how many light bulbs are next to the given cell, vertically and horizontally.
- Each light bulb illuminates from the bulb to a shaded cell or the outer frame in its row and column, in both directions.
- Every unshaded cell must be illuminated and a light bulb can not illuminate another light bulb.
Nurikabe
Divide the grid into rivers and islands according to the following rules:
- Each island contains exactly one clue.
- The number of cells in each island equals the value of the clue.
- All islands are isolated from each other horizontally and vertically.
- There are no lakes, e.g. areas of 2x2 covered entirely by river cells.
- River cells must be all connected to each other, horizontally or vertically.
Killer Sudoku
I guess you know this one :-)
Star Battle
Place stars into some cells in the grid so that each row, column, and 3 by 3 region contains exactly two stars. Stars cannot be placed in adjacent cells, not even diagonally.
And here is the puzzle, if you're still with me.
F-puzzles: https://f-puzzles.com/?id=yattfprv
CTC app: https://tinyurl.com/inceptionpuzzle
Penpa+: https://tinyurl.com/inceptionpenpa
Have fun! Please let me know what you think if you managed to solve it. :-)
matyas
Solution code: Row 5, with stars replaced by capital "X", e.g. 9X53X7461
Comments
on 11. September 2024, 00:06 by kapowchi
Great puzzle, can't believe it all worked out! Well done matt383!
on 12. March 2024, 05:38 by alexc
Brilliant construction! Just the right difficulty, enjoyable all the way through.
on 2. December 2023, 22:47 by AaronB
Brilliant!
on 12. September 2023, 12:47 by mikepautov
this is beautiful!
on 25. July 2023, 22:36 by Fool on Hill
Simply outstanding - a joy to solve as the layers unfold
on 5. June 2023, 18:12 by miss66
I love this! Is there any more puzzles like this?
on 2. June 2023, 11:34 by thatkyle
Co-solved with Nordy. Very fun!
on 1. June 2023, 22:39 by Nordy
Co-solved this with my buddy thatkyle, and we had an absolute blast! Incredible tour through various rulesets.
on 3. May 2023, 02:02 by wunder108
Incredible setting, thanks!
on 2. April 2023, 12:43 by Mitsunari
I really enjoyed this puzzle. This idea to combine different puzzle games to do one puzzle is very nice. It was quite easy and smooth for me to solve it. I hope to see other puzzles like this in the future!
on 2. February 2023, 21:06 by Blazsej007
A really entertaining puzzle
on 14. January 2023, 05:31 by picoton
beautiful, yet approachable! a masterpiece, indeed
on 12. January 2023, 22:56 by Aeneryss
Very nice puzzle, very cool rules.
Although I must admit, I got completely stuck on Star Battles part, and I'm still not sure how to solve it using logic and not checking every possibility
on 29. November 2022, 04:25 by Dermerlin
fantastic puzzle. Thx for this Beauty !
on 8. November 2022, 20:14 by chameleon
Brilliant puzzle!
Many thanks to 19 people who marked it as favorite, and made me solve the puzzle despite being frightened by the amount of rules XD
on 8. September 2022, 20:38 by Agent
One of the puzzles of all time. Very impressive construction.
on 5. August 2022, 15:41 by fraxxtal
Unfortunately trialed and errored the Star Battle part but regardless a banger puzzle.
on 25. July 2022, 20:20 by peacherwu2
I could never imagine anyone can come up with something like this. Truly out of this world! The Killer is especially lovely!
on 17. April 2022, 00:14 by Vebby
What a triumph of creativity, hats off Matyas! :D
on 28. February 2022, 10:36 by matt383
Thank you everyone for the appreciation and the nice comments.
Turns out there is a new layer to this puzzle! Check out the near perfect "Chain of Inception" by Garford here: https://logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/Raetsel/zeigen.php?id=00097H
on 27. February 2022, 11:42 by Rollo
Fantastisch!
on 16. February 2022, 11:31 by pwahs
Very nice construction :)
Funnily, the only rules I wasn't sure about off the top of my head (whether Killer cages can have repeating digits) were left out, would you mind adding the complete rules?
on 15. February 2022, 09:54 by CHalb
Marvellous, thanks a lot to the author! Fortunately I have Dandelo's comments on one of my follow lists :-) .
on 14. February 2022, 04:06 by ough
I only wish the Hitori could have been more difficult! Incredible concept and smooth the whole way through.
on 11. February 2022, 23:35 by rifflesby
A masterpiece! If it included a way to resolve it to a word or phrase at the end, it'd be a fantastic Mystery Hunt puzzle
on 11. February 2022, 22:50 by jshaham
Incredible construction! Each layer stands alone as fun and approachable puzzle, but to put them all together so that one flows into the next is just next level. Bravo!
on 10. February 2022, 22:37 by Krokant
Getting deeper and deeper into this wonderful dream was an absolut treat. A truly brilliant puzzle.
on 10. February 2022, 22:23 by thoughtbyte
Wow, this is a true tour de force. Thank you for constructing this amazing puzpuzpuzpuzzlezlezlezle!
on 10. February 2022, 20:51 by Bootenks
I am falling in love with such a brilliant art to create a multi layer puzzle.
In sum it wasn't too tough, but it required some nice deductions.
Shout out to you, Matyas!
on 10. February 2022, 17:29 by bsparks
Fantastic setting, absolutely brilliant interplay between the puzzles, and the overall difficulty was just right. A great introduction to other puzzle types and how they may work on a standard Sudoku grid as well.
on 10. February 2022, 12:46 by sudocolor
That was extremely fun! Quite approachable as well, even for someone who didn't have too much experience with puzzle types other than sudoku. I would give 150% if I could!
on 10. February 2022, 02:19 by DiMono
Fantastic puzzle!
on 8. February 2022, 19:53 by Kn1nJa
Fantastic. Thank you very much for the excellent puzzle.
on 8. February 2022, 14:43 by MagnusJosefsson
Great puzzle, long and consistently enjoyable! And quite an incredible achievement to make this work so well from start to finish!
on 8. February 2022, 11:44 by Fedo
What a masterpiece! Everything worked so nicely togheter. I had a lot of fun
on 8. February 2022, 01:57 by Sapio
That was such a fun puzzle! I loved how each puzzle drew you into the next one. What a marvelous construction. Thank you so much!
on 6. February 2022, 22:40 by Dandelo
And those who like this puzzle should try the contest "Dream within a Dream" by Hausigel at https://logic-masters.de/Wettbewerbe/CE/wettbewerb.php?id=58
on 6. February 2022, 22:01 by Dandelo
This puzzle deserves much more attention, but unfortunately it has a Sudoku tag. So people looking for non-Sudokus will miss it. And Sudoku fans maybe don't like Star Battle, Nurikabe, Akari and/or Hitori.
Great construction anyway.
on 4. February 2022, 16:38 by matt383
Adjusted difficulty. Thank you all for your feedback!
on 4. February 2022, 14:09 by Lizzy01
Very nice! Wouldn't say it's 5 stars though, more like 3 stars for me.
on 4. February 2022, 01:46 by Jesper
Very nice, thanks!
on 3. February 2022, 22:15 by RJBlarmo
Incredible how well everything works together. Very fun all the way through!
