Shade Your Own Sum Lines
(Published on 17. March 2023, 02:08 by Xendari)
This puzzle essentially contains a single region sum line whose layout must be deduced by the solver. Your feedback is appreciated! :)
Rules
Sudoku: Normal sudoku rules apply.
Shading: Shade some cells in the grid such that all shaded cells are orthogonally connected. The digit in a circle give the number of shaded cells within its 3x3 box. Not all circles are given. Within each 3x3 box, orthogonally connected groups of shaded cells must sum to N, where N is the same for all boxes. Orthogonally connected groups of shaded cells within the same box sum to N individually.
Solve online: SudokuPad (with solution check) | F-Puzzles | Penpa (with solution check, thanks Piatato!)
Solution code: Column 9
Comments
on 18. May 2024, 12:13 by Mr. Happy
This is one of those "I can't believe it actually works out" constructions. Really nice!
on 29. December 2023, 13:44 by plica
simply amazing
on 31. March 2023, 11:13 by Schwupel
wow
on 23. March 2023, 06:26 by SudokuHero
Absolutely loved the break in, and the logic throughout was very pretty.
on 21. March 2023, 14:18 by antiknight
Beautiful puzzle with awesome deductions :)
on 20. March 2023, 20:41 by Klausku
Absolutely brilliant. One of my all-time favourites. I especially liked the break in and how the puzzle disambiguates at the end. Thanks!
on 20. March 2023, 14:51 by Christounet
Miraculously good ! Loved the chain of deduction you need to make before you even start putting anything in the grid ! Thanks.
on 20. March 2023, 14:49 by vidarino
Fantastic puzzle! Fresh and varied logic throughout the entire solve.
on 19. March 2023, 17:19 by Nalinchen
Wow, what I cool idea! Took me a while to understand the path logic (initially I thought of snake logic), but I really enjoyed the deductions along the path and had a great time solving the puzzle!
on 19. March 2023, 05:29 by GranCombat
Simply brilliant. This is one of the first Cracking the Cryptic puzzles I've seen through to the end on my own, and the logic is absolutely beautiful the entire way through. It took a little bit of breaking the world to figure out that I had made an incorrect assumption, and I'm not sure if I really solved the other path with proper logic, but either way I was floored the entire time with how seamlessly Xendari guides the solver through their maze. "Take a bow," as Simon would say.
on 19. March 2023, 00:50 by Barrels
Really really good. Thank you for the awesome puzzle!
on 18. March 2023, 19:54 by Playmaker6174
I'm actually surprised at how you managed to make this one work so wonderfully, and there're lots of surprising moments that made me excited till the very end. Very well done there Xendari ;)
on 18. March 2023, 18:17 by Agent
Fantastic puzzle! Great idea and you absolutely nailed it :)
on 18. March 2023, 18:14 by madhupt
A wonderful puzzle. An absolute joy to solve. Got a bit stuck when reached box 2, but a beautiful piece of logic got me through. Thanks a lot for sharing.
on 18. March 2023, 17:40 by Franjo
This is one of the best puzzles I’ve ever solved! Thank you so much, Xendari! You made me happy.
on 18. March 2023, 16:57 by Fool on Hill
Beautiful puzzle - a joy to solve. Thought I had broken it twice only to spot what I had missed after a bit of thought.
on 18. March 2023, 02:48 by RJBlarmo
Beautiful construction, highly recommend it as well!
on 18. March 2023, 02:29 by Knickolas
Wow that was incredible fun! The way the entire solve neatly unraveled with each deduction was fantastic and showed the master-level setting that went into creating it. I would definitely recommend giving this one a try! :)
on 18. March 2023, 00:55 by britboy3456
A work of art
on 18. March 2023, 00:55 by Piatato
Awesome puzzle! I first spent two hours thinking it was an extremely relentless, monstrous puzzle, but in the end it's a very approachable and fun puzzle when you solve it with the correct ruleset in mind. I first thought that I was gonna find a standard kind of path (one cell wide, non branching etc.), and that worked out really horribly for me xD
on 17. March 2023, 19:00 by jhow25
To clarify, does "3x3 box" mean a box centered at the circle?
Also, "Within each 3x3 box, orthogonally connected groups of shaded cells must sum to N, where N is the same for all boxes." I don't totally understand. Does this mean that the orthogonally connected cells within a 3x3 box sum to a N or a multiple of N? How does this "Orthogonally connected groups of shaded cells within the same box sum to N individually." differ from the former rule?
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Hi, the circles ‘3x3 box’ count is the sudoku boxes - i.e., r7c7 could reference r8c9 but not r6c7.
The second part of the rule is standard for region sum lines but probably overkill here. If N was 8, and there’s one orthogonally connected group in a box, it sums to 8 - and if there were two orthogonally connected groups, they both sum to 8 individually.
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Got it. Thanks!
on 17. March 2023, 09:48 by thoughtbyte
Wonderful! So smooth, I didn't want it to end. Thanks!
on 17. March 2023, 09:27 by Jesper
Very elegant! Really well constructed.
on 17. March 2023, 08:56 by Niverio
That was absolutely incredible, thanks a lot for sharing!
on 17. March 2023, 06:27 by GarageDoorOpener
This puzzle was a really fun solve especially the last push to the end. Highly recommend people give it a shot
on 17. March 2023, 03:09 by Blobz
Such a fun puzzle! From the break-in, all the way to the finish. Highly recommended you give this one a shot.
on 17. March 2023, 02:41 by KNT
this is seriously an awesome puzzle and construction. it's really not all that hard but there's one moment that's magical in the top half of the grid. hugely recommend solving this
