Star Killer Part 1: Moon Landing
(Published on 3. January 2024, 20:00 by FischmitFahrrad)
Star Killer Rules:
- Place exactly two stars into each row, column and box. Stars may not share an edge (no diagonal constraint!). The number in the top-left corner of a cage (if given) gives you the number of stars, that are outside of the cage and share an edge with that cage.
- Digits in a cage do not repeat and sum to the total X. The number in the top-left corner of a cage must be equal to the digit sum of X (e.g. the digit sum of 39 is 12 [3+9]).
Additional constraints:
- Thermo: Digits on a grey thermometer increase from the bulb.
- Palindrome: The value in the Xth cell from one direction of a grey line must be the same value as in the Xth cell from the other direction of that line.
Note: This is an introduction to a series of puzzles and to the ruleset of Star Killer Sudoku i made up. In this introductionary puzzle the placement of stars and digits can both be solved independendly from each other; as the series progresses the puzzles will get more complicated constraints regarding the interaction of stars and digits.
Solve online
You can find part 2 of the series here.
Solution code: The sum of all cells that contain a star (3 digits).
Comments
on 26. July 2024, 15:38 by BaumJames
I was able to solve it. However it didn't make sense to me the Starkiller part of the puzzle. It doesn't contribute any information to the overall solve of the puzzle. Just to test this, I decided to ignore the Starkiller and just solve the sudoku. And I did it. That would be my feedback.
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Thanks for the solve! You're right that this is basically two puzzles that can both be solved individually (Sudoku & Star Battle). This is meant as an introduction to the series and the following puzzles have additional constraints to have the placement of stars and digits intertwined.
on 12. January 2024, 21:23 by Qashqai4eg
Glad to be able to solve it. Actually didn't find to be a 4-star difficulty.
Also didn't really catch how stars works here in terms of placing digits. Since all the numbers for cages are given, actually I have solved without placing stars, and was doing this after to get the solution code.
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yeah, the sudoku & placement of stars are completely independent from each other. This is meant as an introduction to how the cages work. For the later puzzles in the series you need to place digits and stars in unison, as the stars will get additional restrictions.
on 5. January 2024, 23:38 by Bankey
Interesting variant. Thanks, @ FischmitFahrrad :).
on 4. January 2024, 03:51 by ryanprobably
Quite difficult, curious to see the next iterations
