A Game of Battleship!
(Published on 14. August 2022, 23:04 by Niverio)
Estimated Difficulty of this puzzle is a solid 5/5, however, it shouldn't have any singular deduction that feels brutally difficult. The difficulty comes from the overall length of the solve and the various new ways of thinking required to approach the puzzle. So overall my aim is to establish a long solve that the solver will feel immersed in it's story, and enjoy thoroughly for a relatively long time. Overall I expect experienced solvers to solve this puzzle in around 3 hours.
Rules:
- Chaos Deconstruction rules apply. Divide the 10x10 grid into regions of 10 orthogonally connected regions of 9 cells. Place the digits 1-9 into every single region. Digits cannot repeat in any row, column, or region.
- The entire grid is a brutal game of Battleship. Two legendary puzzle setters turned admirals, KNT and TNC (TotallyNormalCat) have battled here.
- To solve the puzzle, you have to tackle down Niverio's notes, who has spectated the entire battle. He has left it up to you to reconstruct the entire battlefield! Will you be able to rewrite the history?
(Relevant) Rules of Battleship game:
1) Both players are in control of a fleet of 5 ships. The fleet is detailed with an illustration under the notes.
2) Both players take alternating turns firing at a certain cell on the enemies' 10x10 grid. Only one shot is allowed per turn. The attacked player then announces if the attack is a hit (the hit cell contains a ship) or a miss (the hit cell does not contain a ship).
3) The player who manages to hit all the cells of all enemy ships is the winner.
Here you can view the note file in PDF format.
Here you can view the note file in DOCX format.
IMPORTANT clarification: (ty to filuta for catching this) The point about "the cells that saw no ships in the 3x3 area centered at the cell summed to 9" DOES NOT include the cells at the edge of the grid, or corners! Only cells that can have a 3x3 drawn around them are valid. If you have any other questions about the rules, you can leave a comment, or read the previous comments here to see if other solvers have asked the question before.
Puzzle Link: You can solve the puzzle in Penpa+. The way to trigger answer check is detailed under the note file.
Solution code: Write the winner of the battle, followed by -, followed by the 3 coordinates of TNC's cruiser (Column first, left to right or top to bottom), followed by -, followed by Column H's digits, with dashes for region borders (using X for empty cells). Example: TNC-A1A2A3-123-45-6-7-X-89
Comments
on 4. October 2024, 20:20 by Playmaker6174
Super fun and long journey (or gameplay I should say x) ) there!
Took me about just over 3 hours total but I definitely had lots of fun during each part. If anything, working around the sums for the ships as well as the regions in the second part were my favorite parts ;)
on 26. August 2024, 17:47 by ghaia
What an impressive puzzle this is. It felt fair, rewarding and challenging all at once, and even for a beginner like me, all the hours (7+) put into it have been fun and thrilling in their own way. The way a few clues cross to give way to the next step and slowly unravel the puzzle is just mesmerising. I got stuck in a few clues, but finally realising the contradictions that gave way to the answer felt so rewarding and motivating to continue.
Overall just a very nice puzzle to solve :D
on 7. January 2023, 06:29 by Xendari
I think this is the longest I've ever spent on a puzzle (4.5~h). I also think this is the one of the only >2hr puzzles I've completed where I never felt like anything was even slightly unfair. Granted, I got stuck at a few sticking points, but that was primarily me just missing the rules lol. Such a beautiful construction, thank you so much for setting and sharing :)
on 17. November 2022, 10:31 by Silverstep
Each deduction on its own is quite easy to make - not the type I'd expect from a 5-star, 100-percent-rating. However it's also easy to make a mistake with a puzzle this long - I got the Carrier with the Cruiser mixed up and ended up having to backtrack for quite a while.
on 22. August 2022, 05:39 by kjholt
This was an incredible way to spend my entire Sunday! Thank you Niverio!
on 20. August 2022, 11:01 by Ood
Great puzzle
on 20. August 2022, 10:48 by laky
what a nice puzzle！the most difficult part of the puzzle is Chaos Deconstruction part.Don't miss this puzzle!And thanks to the niverio.thanks
for clarifying the rule of the sum of 9.Looking forward to your next puzzle.Actually I have played this battleship game during my middle school time.thanks for bring those good memories back to me.
on 20. August 2022, 10:36 by cdwg2000
Awesome! Super super difficult, lack spent 2 days of time to kill the spread of battleship, I completed the last part with him in the afternoon.
on 18. August 2022, 21:42 by JayForty
Fun and original! I really enjoyed both parts of the solve and the very thematic clues. Really well constructed!
on 17. August 2022, 21:21 by filuta
I must say I really admire the experimental and also uncompromising (but not arbitrary) nature of the ruleset, combined with the genuine care for the solver, so they are not bothered with more obstacles than necessary.
what I also liked was a real diversity of the logic and just the right amount of complexity once you ingest the rules. the hardest part for me was the very end (after basically all clues are used), but this certainly shouldn't scare anyone with at least average scanning abilities.
thanks a lot for this unique experience it really was a great journey!
on 17. August 2022, 15:19 by Niverio
Clarified a certain point which is directly impactful to the solve after feedback from filuta.
on 17. August 2022, 11:32 by laky
I have many questions about the note.firstly,I don't understand what meaning of the"Kent's shot went right in between his submarine and destoryer". Is there a cell(or more cell) between submardestoryer ?secondly,"a successful hit onto row9by winner fleet sealed the demise of the losing fleet".Can I just understand the game winning shot hit onto the row9?
~ Hey Laky! 1) what that first statement says as a formal rule is that KNT had made a shot at a cell which is orthogonally connected to both TNC's destroyer and submarine, and all 3 coordinates are in the same direction. Possible examples: A1 belongs to TNC's sub, A2 is the empty cell that KNT shot, A3 belongs to TNC's destroyer, or vice versa.
Or A1 belongs to TNC's sub, B1 is empty, C1 has TNC's destroyer, or vice versa.
Invalid example: A1 has TNC's sub, A2 is the empty cell shot, B3 has TNC's destroyer.
2) Yes, that statement basically says that the last hit ship has at least one of its cells in Row 9.
on 17. August 2022, 03:24 by tallcat
Brilliant and original puzzle. I found the first part pretty straightforward but struggled a bit with part two (mainly from forgetting rules). Kept me hooked until the end! Bravo
on 16. August 2022, 21:07 by Vebby
What an effort to create this! Well done! 4/5 difficulty imo.
on 15. August 2022, 16:41 by Niverio
Added Battleship game rules.
on 15. August 2022, 06:02 by RJBlarmo
In all seriousness this is a fantastic puzzle with lots of intricate pieces of logic, definitely a solid 5/5 for me.
on 15. August 2022, 05:55 by RJBlarmo
absolutely insane
on 15. August 2022, 00:13 by JayForty
Two questions about the rules. 1) Does "shot went right in between" mean that both ships have to be adjacent to the shot? 2) Does "placing two ships on a certain column" mean that both have to be vertically placed in that column?
1) Yes, it has to be orthogonally adjacent to two ships.
2) No, not necessarily. But that can still be the case.
--Thanks!
on 14. August 2022, 23:26 by bigger
I have to admit, it's the longest rule i've ever seen yet. too much infomation for my hee-hoo brain to process
~It is indeed intimidating at first! However I did my best to make sure all the information was presented in an orderly and relatively clear way. (aside from the thematic descriptions used in the first part for immersion purposes) There are even 1-2 clues in there which are not needed for a unique puzzle, but I placed them to telegraph where to look at certain places of the solve so that the puzzle flows nicely and overall the order of clue placement for both parts have specific reasons.
on 14. August 2022, 23:06 by KNT
This was super, super fun for me, and unlike anything I've ever solved before. Definitely one of my favorite puzzles ever, and I'm honored to be an admiral in this battle despite [SPOILER]
