Crypto Japanese Twilight Cave
(Published on 23. October 2022, 06:02 by KNT)
Shade some cells such that all unshaded cells are orthogonally connected, and all orthogonally connected groups of shaded cells touch the edge of the grid.
Clues outside the grid to the top and left indicate the sums of connected groups of either shaded or unshaded numbers in the respective row or column, in order, where numbers in cells with the opposite shading serve as delimeters between groups. All the columns are for one of either shaded or unshaded, and all of the rows are for whichever type of shading the columns is not.
If a cell with a circle is unshaded, the number placed indicates the total number of unshaded cells seen in all four orthogonal directions, including itself, where shaded cells obstruct vision. If a cell with a circle is shaded, then number placed indicates the size of the orthogonally connected shaded region that cell belongs to.
The letters A to G replace numbers from 0 to 9, and no two letters may replace the same number. A question mark can be any number from 0 to 9, and for all clues, none may have a leading zero.
A 1-6 example is provided:
Solution code: Row 2 followed by Row 8
Comments
on 15. January 2024, 11:53 by Playmaker6174
What a really neat and satisfying puzzle! (once I remembered that this was the older one and we still got into two types of Jsum at that point)
Got stuck for a while in the middle, but then I realized the important part around column 2 and everything suddenly got resolved just like that later on x)
on 27. September 2023, 19:42 by Christounet
I got some quiet time today, so I decided it was about time I tried to catch up with this wonderful series. Superb as always. Thanks :)
on 15. May 2023, 12:13 by Piatato
Lovely! Awesome solve path with some cool surprises :)
on 15. February 2023, 09:45 by Agent
Great puzzle! Very narrow and rewarding solution path, with one particular clue that came out of nowhere.
on 23. December 2022, 07:05 by wooferzfg
Beautiful puzzle. The scanning in this one was tough, but I enjoy being stuck :)
on 10. November 2022, 19:35 by KNT
Title
on 1. November 2022, 16:49 by ibag
Mal wieder großartig!
on 24. October 2022, 17:13 by marcmees
Great puzzle. Lots of cool logic to discover in this one. Thank you.
on 23. October 2022, 18:45 by MagnusJosefsson
Fantastic puzzle, I think the addition of the circled clues really added a lot more variety of logic which was cool. Thanks KNT!
on 23. October 2022, 08:16 by Xendari
Very beautiful, as with all entries in this series. Thank you :)
on 23. October 2022, 06:08 by polar
Wunderschön!
Always happy to solve your puzzles & I don’t intend on stopping anytime soon either :)
on 23. October 2022, 06:01 by KNT
This was the last of the puzzles in my posting backlog, and should be easier than the previous two. I have been having a lot of fun with this series, and I hope you all are enjoying solving it half as much as I am setting it. I still do have quite a few more ideas for this series in the future, most of which are very wildly different than any I have posted so far, and I hope you look forward to them.
I know I don't reply to every comment on my puzzles, but please do know I appreciate every single one, and I would like to say thank you to everyone for the overwhelmingly positive feedback you give me on a regular basis. It really fuels me to keep doing what I enjoy :)
