Slightly Chaotic Circles
(Published on 21. September 2023, 06:44 by thoughtbyte)
Chaos construction: divide the grid into regions, each consisting of six orthogonally connected cells. Each row, column, and region contains the digits 1-6 once each.
Counting circles: a circled digit indicates exactly how many circles contain that digit. Circles may contain any single digit 1-6. Circles outside the grid count towards their digits' totals.
X-sums: a clue outside the grid is the sum of the first X cells in the corresponding row/column, where X is the digit in the cell nearest to the clue. All cells included in the sum are in the same region and the X+1th cell is in a different region.
Penpa+: https://tinyurl.com/2yw7z97g
SudokuPad: https://tinyurl.com/slightchaos
Solution code: Row 2 followed by column 5.
Comments
on 14. May 2024, 08:23 by wuc
Great introduction to chaos construction. Having solved many xsums puzzles helped a lot. 1.5 stars for me. Thx.
on 15. January 2024, 21:56 by cascadeshiker
Very nice puzzle. I really enjoyed the solve. I'm amazed that this is rated a one star puzzle, it just looks too intimidating for that.
on 25. September 2023, 16:30 by Flinty
I don't believe for a second that this is 1/5 for difficulty.
on 23. September 2023, 12:57 by rentalcustard
I really enjoyed the break-in and the vast majority of the solve! I just found it a tiny bit unsatisfying, like Snaques, that the grid was completely filled with digits for me when I still had three regions left to define.
I would love to see a 9x9 version of this. The interaction of the circle and x-sum logic at the start was really pretty!
on 22. September 2023, 19:07 by Prutsbeest
Very nice. First you need to think a bit about the ruleset, after that it fills in ever so smoothly!
on 22. September 2023, 18:04 by nearestneighbour
Very nice, it's an art to make such an easy chaos construction puzzle!
on 22. September 2023, 15:45 by thoughtbyte
Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'm happy to see you enjoyed this one!
on 22. September 2023, 14:21 by thrutch
Well, that was some kind of wizardry. The initial grid looked so intimidating that all the way through I felt a sense of disbelief that I was solving it so smoothly and that I must be about to find I made a mistake, and then suddenly it was done. Very enjoyable, and I'd love to see what thoughtbyte can do with this ruleset in a larger grid!
-- thanks for the feedback and im glad you enjoyed it! the 9x9 is in the works and it is devious, since X-sums clue circles may contain 2 digits... some wild deductions so far :D
on 22. September 2023, 13:16 by marty_sears
This was lovely, and I didn't actually find it too easy. Took me over half an hour. Some very fun moments in there - was cool how the x-sums narrowed down the options for eachother, and how limited the options for the circles became.
on 21. September 2023, 19:40 by Snaques
Quite enjoyed this one, but didn't finish half of the regions when the puzzle was already solved. Left a bit of a weird feeling.
-- ah yes, it needs a better solution code. glad you enjoyed it.
on 21. September 2023, 17:27 by HumanBirdsong
What a gorgeous puzzle! Such a satisfying solution path, and approachable, too. Well done.
on 21. September 2023, 13:16 by Schma
It took quite some time to get my head around the ruleset but once that clicked, the puzzle was very enjoyable.
on 21. September 2023, 09:11 by Sinuit
I love chaos construction if it‘s not too hard. So, this was perfect.
Very nice combination of rules. At first I thought this must be more than 1 star difficulty, but after a little pencil marking it got quite easy.
Thanks for this pretty puzzle!
on 21. September 2023, 08:45 by SparkNights
Funny universe puzzle haha
on 21. September 2023, 08:12 by EmpyClaw
It took a smidge of time to wrap my head around the start of this one, but once I did it was an absolute delight all the way through, and the logic follows quite nicely!
- thank you for the feedback. I'm delighted you enjoyed the puzzle, especially since it's your first logged solve here. Congrats!
on 21. September 2023, 08:03 by thoughtbyte
rule clarification
