X-Sums & Sandwiches
(Published on 2. April 2022, 03:02 by kolot)
RULES: Normal sudoku rules apply. Clues outside the grid represent any positive integers and they show the sum of the first X digits from that direction where X is the first digit and they also show the sum of the digits between the 1 and the 9 in that row/column.
I hope you enjoy the puzzle. Your comments and ratings are highly appreciated as usual!
Solution code: Row 3 followed by column 4.
Comments
on 20. October 2023, 20:52 by Yann
I don't know what this was, but I loved it ! (brutal ending though)
on 1. February 2023, 05:57 by Agent
One of the most impressive minimalistic constructions. It must've taken forever to create this.
on 29. May 2022, 14:13 by Vebby
Outstanding construction to make it work so minimalistically! Lovely logic throughout. Thanks Emre!
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Thank you so much for solving it and for this lovely comment!
on 7. May 2022, 01:21 by filuta
I was expecting a monster, but with so few clues it is actually never hard to see where the next step is and the path is so clean it really defies believe. Amazing job setting this!
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Thank you, filuta! As you said, as the number of clues reduces, the number of places to look next also reduces.
on 19. April 2022, 00:20 by OGRussHood
This puzzle is mad.
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Thank you! :-)
on 9. April 2022, 00:14 by Novisnage
Incredible! How can this puzzle exist? I simply cannot believe that something like this actually works and works so beautifully. Took me quite a long time but it was absolutely worth it. Thank you so much Emre!
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Thank you so much for solving the puzzle and for these kind words!
on 7. April 2022, 00:39 by Christounet
Incredible ! Such a brilliant construction and with so few information that it seems genuinely impossible at first glance. Coming up with this kind of masterpiece and make it work seems to me like finding the holy grail of sudoku ! May eternal light shine upon your head for this, master ! And thanks for sharing your work with us mere mortals.
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Well, thank you so much for solving the puzzle and for these incredible words!
on 6. April 2022, 18:55 by MatthewDonovan
What a puzzle, thank you! Very interesting rule set and I love how the puzzle slowly revealed itself. I look forward to watching the CtC video to see any of the elegance I may have missed!
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Thank you so much for this kind comment!
on 6. April 2022, 15:31 by pianobarry87
A masterpiece.
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Thank you so much!
on 6. April 2022, 04:21 by mathpesto
I cannot believe this puzzle could possibly exist! And I cannot fathom how you went about constructing this. Absolutely incredible!
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Thank you so much for your kind comment!
on 6. April 2022, 02:57 by thefallenrat
Truly INSANE!
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Thanks! :-)
on 5. April 2022, 23:56 by Jay Dyer
Brilliant puzzle! Nowhere near as impossible as it initially looked, but still amazingly intricate all the way through! Thoroughly enjoyed solving it.
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Thank you so much! I am very happy to see that you enjoyed it.
on 5. April 2022, 14:00 by henrypijames
Not only do I recommend this puzzle for CtC in the strongest terms, I specifically recommend it to be "cold-opened" live by the solver, as they sometimes do. The priceless "What?!" facial expression we're guaranteed to get will be worth watching by itself.
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Well, that would be a great moment. :-) I hope they haven’t seen the puzzle yet and only the testers see the e-mails.
Edit: It’s too late. :-)
on 4. April 2022, 00:10 by TheRiddler
What a weird set-up (in the most positive sense :-P)!
That was a fun solve!!
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Thank you for solving this weird puzzle! :-) Good to see that you enjoyed it.
on 3. April 2022, 20:42 by henrypijames
Calling this puzzle impressive or even astonishing would still be an enormous understatement - its simple brilliance is nothing short of startling, in fact downright frightening.
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Thank you so much for these very kind words! You made me really very happy with these words.
on 2. April 2022, 20:58 by DVFrank
Quite incredible puzzle with so much fascinating logic! I absolutely loved it! :^)
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Thank you for solving and your kind comment! Happy to see that you enjoyed it.
on 2. April 2022, 19:53 by RockyRoer
Fantastic. I'm so jealous that I can't put my name as the creator of this.
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Thank you so much for your kind words!
on 2. April 2022, 13:23 by Piatato
Awesome puzzle! I actually had some stuff I needed to do, but this puzzle looked way too intrigueing!
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Thank you so much for your time and your kind comment!
on 2. April 2022, 12:15 by marcmees
pure magic. thanks.
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Thanks for solving.
on 2. April 2022, 11:02 by Jesper
Great, thanks! Really impressive to construct a nice solution path with such a restricted and simple clue setup.
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Thank you so much! I spent a lot of time to construct this puzzle. I came up with a few grids that are unique if a grey circle or a white dot is added somewhere. Then I found a grid that is unique without any extra rule but I didn’t like it because it didn’t have a nice solution path, some steps were very hard to spot without bifurcation. I kept working on it and got this grid and I was very happy with it because it had a nice solution path as well. It is very good to see that you find it impressive.
on 2. April 2022, 09:57 by PrimeWeasel
Excellent stuff!
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Thank you!
on 2. April 2022, 09:19 by twobear
Amazing puzzle! Thank you!
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Thank you for solving!
on 2. April 2022, 09:18 by Playmaker6174
Very cool puzzle! Pretty challenging in the mid solve but the overall solve is really beautiful!
I love puzzles where the clues act as double-duty clues, but this one fascinates me because not only it looks so minimal (ambiguous clues too!) but also there’re lots of juicy logics in it that never stop being satisfying :)
[Looks like I don’t need to create a SandwiX-sum puzzle here xD]
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Thank you so much! It is good to see that it was satisfying. What kind of a rule set would a SandwiX-sum sudoku have?
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welp it's basically the same as yours (not all ambiguous) but with some extra unrelated clues :)
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I see. I thought it might have a slightly different rule set.
on 2. April 2022, 08:39 by kolot
Minor change in the rule statement to avoid any confusion.
on 2. April 2022, 05:21 by Elliott810
Fantastic puzzle! Very original idea, beautifully implemented. The break-in at its finest. Take a bow and thanks:)
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Thank you so much for your kind comment. I am happy to see that you liked it.
on 2. April 2022, 04:52 by RJBlarmo
Very impressive construction to have only 9 clues, and all of them are question marks!
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Thank you so much! This puzzle took me a long time to set. It is good to see that you found it impressive.
