Look-and-Snake
(Published on 31. July 2023, 23:58 by heliopolix )
Thanks to 99%Sneaky's puzzle Lithium+Neon for inspiration.Thanks to all my testers for their time and feedback.
Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply.
Draw a single snake in the grid, starting in r9c1 (marked with a square). A snake is a one-cell-wide path of orthogonally-connected cells which does not branch or touch itself orthogonally (it may touch diagonally).
The snake must visit every circle in the grid, and it must not end in a circle. It must not cross cell borders marked with a red 'x'.
Along the snake, a digit in a circle and the following digit should be read together as a look-and-say number, which says the number of times a digit appears on the snake (for example, a look-and-say clue of 38 would indicate that three 8's appear on the snake).
Different numbers can appear the same number of times on the snake (for example, there can be seven 5's and seven 6's on the snake).
Digits that appear on the snake more than once must be counted by a look-and-say clue (digits that appear once may or may not be counted).
Cells with the same letter contain the same digit (each letter represents a different digit). Cells separated by a horizontal (>) or vertical (v) inequality must obey the inequality.
Comments are always welcome. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the puzzle. Have fun!
Streamers have permission to use this puzzle. Recommended betting cell for streaming is r1c1.
Play in Penpa+ (answer check is on digits in the grid)
Solution code: Digits in circles along the snake starting from the head, followed by the last digit on the snake (19 digits)
Comments
on 1. August 2023, 04:12 by Big Tiger
Why are there TWO columns to the right? Does "A" stand for only one digit every time it appears on the grid? Or does it stand for one or another?
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Thanks for the questions! Each letter represents the same digit. For example, if you deduce that A is 6 in one cell, then every cell with an A is also 6, and no cell with a other letter can be 6.
I placed two columns for the solver's convenience, to use as they see fit. In my personal solve, I used one column to count appearances of a the letter on the snake, and the other to track potential candidates for that letter.
on 1. August 2023, 00:12 by Myxo
Great puzzle! Although scanning letters was very hard for me :D
