Nuriquarium Sudoku
(Published on 26. January 2023, 12:46 by Jay Dyer)
I'm still working my way through my backlog of puzzles, after having had a rather busy December. This was the first of two aquarium chaos constructions I made, this second of which, Japanese Aquarium, I have already published here. This is the harder of the two, in my view, and was much more of an exercise in minimalism.
Rules:
- Chaos construction: Divide the grid into nine regions of nine orthogonally connected cells. Each row, column, and region contains the digits 1-9 once each.
- Nurikabe: Shade some cells to form a single orthogonally connected area. No 2x2 area is fully shaded.
- Aquarium: Within each region, every row is either fully shaded or fully unshaded, and a shaded row is never above an unshaded row in the same region.
- BYO Killer: Each clued cell is unshaded, and each orthogonally connected unshaded area contains exactly one clue, which may occupy any position in the area. The digit in the clued cell gives the size of the unshaded area, and the clue itself gives the sum of the area's digits. Digits may not repeat within the area. Note that these areas may cross region boundaries.
Solution code: Rows 4 and 5
Comments
on 28. January 2024, 08:58 by Mikemerin
Easily one of the most difficult puzzles I’ve played, which makes it incredibly rewarding. The construction with this ruleset is absolutely lovely and it’s a marvel of a setting with only 6 clues given.
on 9. May 2023, 06:31 by Phistomefel
That is one heck of an impressive construction. Thank you so much for going the lengths to figure out this configuration, Jay!
on 8. May 2023, 12:01 by GabeSzeto
Thank you Jay for this monster of a puzzle. Took me just over 4.5 hours but made the time fly by so quickly.
on 18. February 2023, 02:52 by codewizard
My god, that was probably the hardest puzzle I've every solved. Took me some 7 hours, although I have no idea where that time went... Not having done many aquariums before, and the weird hybrid of areas and regions made me feel like on a knife edge the whole way; terrified not to make mistakes. Great puzzle!
on 28. January 2023, 00:03 by MagnusJosefsson
Fantastic puzzle! The early parts (Nurikabe/Aquarium shading and region division) were especially great, a pure exquisite delight.
on 27. January 2023, 21:50 by Elliptical
Very tough minimalist construction. I love those. :)
on 27. January 2023, 20:34 by peacherwu2
As always, amazing puzzle!!!
on 27. January 2023, 13:16 by twobear
It’s quite miraculous indeed. Thank you very much!
on 27. January 2023, 09:55 by polar
Brilliant puzzle thanks!
on 27. January 2023, 09:31 by kjholt
Horrendously difficult at the end for me (after having the regions mostly done) but I probably missed something that would have made it smoother. That being said, I loved it.
on 26. January 2023, 22:38 by Jesper
Awesome puzzle, thanks! Quite remarkable that it resolves with only those clues.
on 26. January 2023, 17:41 by ONeill
Very impressive construction!
on 26. January 2023, 14:52 by henrypijames
I remember it as a miraculous construction from my test solve nearly three month ago. Now I only need to find the screenshot of my solution on the other computer. ;D
