Welcome to the fifth season finale of the Cryptos. A tuace in-house production.
In the following table you can enter the value assignments of all five puzzles of this season so far.
Loopfinder: The puzzle includes four separate grids, with different rules for each grid. The task is to determine which rules belong to which grid, and solve the resulting puzzles.
The following general rules are valid for all four puzzle grids:
Draw a closed loop on the grid that orthogonally connects the centers of adjacent cells. The loop may cross itself (unless a special rule for a separate grid forbids this), but not in cells with circles. Otherwise, each white cell may be visited at most once. The loop does not pass through blackened cell, but it must pass through all cells with cryptos as well as all cells with circles.
In addition, there are rules in six categories. Three of these categories are dependent on the cryptos, the other three are independent. Each grid must conform to exactly one rule from each category, and each rule must apply to exactly one grid.
For the crypto-dependent categories, each digit from the table must be assigned to exactly one grid. This grid must contain the crypto of the column from which the digit was taken at least once. Then all corresponding cryptos of the grid are replaced by this digit. It is valid for each grid separately that different cryptos may not be assigned to the same digit, thus same cryptos, same digits, different cryptos, different digits.
The crypto-independent categories are explained first below.
Category A: General rules
Rule 1: The loop passes through each white cell and cannot cross itself.
Rule 2: The loop does not pass through every white cell and cannot cross itself.
Rule 3: The loop passes through each white cell and must cross itself at least once.
Rule 4: The loop does not pass through every white cell and must cross itself at least once.
Category B: Circles - Masyu
All circles correspond to Masyu rules. In Masyu, a white circle means that the loop passes straight through the circle and makes a turn in at least one of the cells immediately before or after the circle. A black Masyu circle means that the loop makes a turn in the circle and passes straight through (here with or without crossing itself) the cells immediately before and after the circle.
Reminder: The loop must not cross in cells with circles.
Rule 1: All circles correspond to white Masyu circles.
Rule 2: All circles correspond to black Masyu circles.
Rule 3: All circles correspond to neither white, nor black Masyu circles.
Rule 4: All circles correspond to either white or black Masyu circles, and the loop must always alternate between them.
Category C: Arrows - Myopia
All arrows are used in the same way as in Myopia. Here, however, they point away from grid crosspoints in the four diagonal directions and point, whether one or more, to the nearest cells with a specific content. If there is no arrow in one direction, then the nearest cell with the specific content is further away, or there is no such cell at all in that direction.
Attention: Black cells are not blank cells, and they do not affect the effect of the arrows!
The specific cell content is
Rule 1: a straight line of the loop.
Rule 2: a corner of the loop.
Rule 3: a crossing of the loop.
Rule 4: a blank cell.
Now to the categories in which cryptos play a role.
Category D: Cryptos within the grid - Geradeweg
The cryptos within the grid give clues about the length of straight segments of the loop that touch the crypto, as is usual for the Geradeweg. However, in three of the four grids, these clues are Knapp daneben, which means, either too large by 1 or too small by 1. Therefore, in the cases where two segments touch the crypto, one segment may have a different length than the other.
Rule 1: All the clues are correct, and the loop can go straight through, turn there or cross there, if allowed.
Rule 2: All the clues are Knapp daneben, and the loop goes straight through all of them without crossing there.
Rule 3: All the clues are Knapp daneben, and the loop turns at all of them.
Rule 4: All the clues are Knapp daneben, and the loop crosses at all of them.
Category E: Cryptos on the left and above the grid
The cryptos on the left of the grid refer to the length of horizontal loop segments of the respective row, the cryptos above refer to the length of vertical segments of the respective column.
Attention: These cryptos must not be assigned the digit 0!
Rule 1: A segment of the specified length does not occur in the row or column.
Rule 2: Exactly one segment of the specified length occur in the row or column.
Rule 3: Exactly two segments of the specified length occur in the row or column.
Rule 4: At least three segments of the specified length occur in the row or column.
Category F: Cryptos on the right and below the grid
These cryptos indicate how often a specific cell content occurs in the corresponding row or column.
Attention: Black cells are not blank cells!
The specific cell content are
Rule 1: straight lines of the loop.
Rule 2: corners of the loop.
Rule 3: crossings of the loop.
Rule 4: blank cells.