Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

To Christmas 2022 some eager puzzlefriends have again arranged a group in which everybody had to make anonymously a puzzle for someone else. These puzzles are now presented one after the other here in the portal.

Sweat dripped from the gnome Fipsi's forehead as he compiled his very first kakuro. Santa had decided that it was time for Claudia to receive a kakuro for Christmas, and commissioned Fipsi for the job. The gnome had swallowed hard and said he surely wasn't the right one to get it done, as he had never built such a thing before. "It'll all work out, no worries," Santa had retorted and left Fipsi to his fate. After several hours, the gnome felt he'd finally come to grips with his task, when a little gnome with an ink bottle and his cap too far over his eyes ran by and stumbled, splattering little blots of ink all over Fipsi's kakuro. "Can't you watch where you're going?" Fipsi growled at the clumsy fellow, who apologized profusely before excusing himself, saying he had an urgent ink delivery to make. Fipsi gazed upon this debacle and could only suppress his sobs with a great effort. He stared at the splatter for a while, and then gradually chanced upon an idea: even though it wouldn't be possible to write digits on the ink droplets, they did divide a region between two grey kakuro cells (or between a grey kakuro cell and the edge) into one or more regions of white cells. These needed to each have the same sum, and wherever a kakuro clue was given, then it indicated that sum. Some droplets were directly beside grey cells, but if there were no white cells in between then these simply didn't count. He thought the same about droplets on the edge. Then he set to work, and at the end was so proud of his accomplishment that he ran straight to Santa to report his results. When the two of them had returned to the workshop, however, the droplets had vanished. The clumsy little gnome must have felt bad, and he had come back with a bottle of ink remover to erase the droplets. But in its current state, surely the puzzle could not be solved, and Fipsi despaired. Santa asked hopefully whether Fipsi could remember any details of the droplet arrangement. Fipsi collected himself and thought for a moment. "If I remember right, the droplets were arranged like the blackened cells in a kuromasu, and the white cells were also connected. I can even remember a few of the white cells in which the digit acted as a kuromasu clue, but I no longer remember whether it was all of them." He placed circles into the corresponding cells. Santa contemplated the grid, ruminated on it for a moment, and then confidently declared: "Well, I feel sure it can be solved now."