Odd Blossom
(Published on 23. September 2023, 11:01 by Myxo)
After I submitted plenty of hard puzzles lately, here is one that's a bit more approachable. An idea of mine that was originally intended to be used in a Fillomino, ended up as a Sudoku with Minesweeper clues instead. Philip Newman first found a valid grid for this ruleset regarding odd digits, which I tweaked and placed clues in order to create a hopefully smooth solution path. Enjoy!
Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply. Place the digits 1-9 once in each row, column and box.
All odd digits form orthogonally connected groups of exactly 5 cells.
Digits in circles indicate the number of odd digits in the (at most) 3x3-area with the circle at its center, including itself. Not all possible circles are necessarily given.
Solution code: row 5
Comments
on 10. October 2023, 13:00 by Myxo
clarified rules
on 10. October 2023, 11:14 by juhish
Nice, thanks!
I spent some time wondering about this rule: "All orthogonally connected groups of odd digits include exactly 5 cells."
Doesn't this mean that there could be a single odd digit - that's not orthogonally connected to any other odd digit - somewhere in the grid? Since that digit would not be in a "group"..?
If that's not on purpose, maybe the rules could clearly mention that "all odd digits in the grid are orthogonally connected in groups of exactly five cells".
---
Myxo: Thanks for your comment, I clarified the wording of the rules.
on 7. October 2023, 20:32 by dumediat
Very satisfying and beautiful, thank you!
on 25. September 2023, 07:49 by tesseralis
as someone who also recently has taken a foray into easier puzzles, this absolutely deserves the beauty rating, though it was more of a 4-star for me.
on 23. September 2023, 21:07 by Piatato
Very cool, thanks!
on 23. September 2023, 17:24 by rentalcustard
I convinced myself several times that the puzzle was broken while looking for the odd regions, and once I finally finished finding them, the grid filled itself in a really satisfying way. Great ruleset!
on 23. September 2023, 12:51 by ONeill
Fun ruleset, thanks!
