Ƨ Slithering Loop Ƨ
(Published on 14. October 2023, 08:05 by ElChiglia)
---- RULES ----
Normal Sudoku rules apply: Fill the grid with digits 1 to 9 appearing once each in every row, column, and 3x3 box.
Slitherlink Loop: Draw a single non-intersecting loop into the inner 7x7 grid by connecting the centers of orthogonally adjacent cells. Clues in small white dots indicate how many loop segments are connecting pairs of cells adjacent to the clue, up to 4, ie., it counts how many loop segments are surrounding the clue. The loop never enters the outermost columns (c1 and c9) and rows (r1 and r9).
Entropic Line: The Slitherlink Loop acts as an Entropic Line. Any group of three consecutive cells along the loop must contain one low digit (1,2,3), one middle digit (4,5,6), and one high digit (7,8,9).
Killer Cages: Digits within cages cannot repeat, and they must sum to the small number shown.
Little Killers: A clue outside the grid is the sum of the digits along the indicated diagonal.
---- LINKS ----
Solve this puzzle in the
CtC app
Solve this puzzle on f-puzzles.com
---- EXAMPLE ----
Note: Here, the Entropic Line alternates only between low digits (1,2,3) and high digits (4,5,6)!
Solve this example in the CtC app
Solve this example on f-puzzles.com
This is the fourth sudoku in my series of “Build-your-own-loop Sudokus". If you liked solving this puzzle or if you prefer other combinations of loop logic and constraints, feel free to give the other sudokus of the series a go too:
| Loop Logic | Loop Constraint | Further Constraints | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Road Running Loop |
Road Runner | Parity Line | Kropki Dots | |
| Magically Modifying Loop |
- | Incrementers, Decrementers, Nullifiers |
Magic Squares, Killer cages, Kropki Dots |
|
| Skiing Loop | Gates | German Whispers | Kropki Dot, Between Lines |
|
| Behaving Loop | 3x3 boxes | Polarity Line | Kropki Dots | |
| Magical Loop | Guiding cells | Modular Line | Magic Squares | |
| Foggy Loop | Guiding cells | Parity Line | Fog of War, Killer Cages |
|
| 10-Suȵ Loop | Moon-or-Sun | 10-Line | Killer Cages | |
| Counting Loop | Galaxies | Counting Line | Killer Cages, Kropki Dots, Quadruple Clues |
|
| Shining Loop | Moon-or-Sun | Parity Line | Killer Cages | |
| Interfering Loops | Slitherlink + Masyu |
Entropic Line + Parity Line |
Killer Cages | |
| Slithering Loop | Slitherlink | Entropic Line | Killer Cages, Little Killer |
|
| BigBang Loop | Galaxies | Parity Line | Row/Column Indexer, Kropki Dots |
|
| Summing Loop | Star Battle | Region Sum Line | Killer Cages, Skyscraper, Kropki Dots |
|
| Whispering Loop | Star Battle | German Whispers | Sandwich Sum |
Solution code: Column 8, followed by row 8
Comments
on 28. February 2024, 01:19 by sorryimLate
While the laborious (for me) colouring deduction part of this puzzle might not be my favourite kind of logic, it's still a very clever puzzle. 4 stars sounds fair. Thanks for sharing!
on 3. December 2023, 16:38 by ElChiglia
thanks for the nice feedback. I in fact put it as 4/5 here, but the majority of solvers saw it as a 5/5 apparently, so it went up pretty quickly :)
on 3. December 2023, 15:40 by Mitsunari
Nice one! To be fair, it is around 3 stars for me. The loop is quite easy to define. after, it is deduction :)
on 29. November 2023, 11:19 by Snookerfan
Excellent! Lovely interactions between the different constraints. I think 4 stars is reasonable. Thank you
on 20. November 2023, 00:41 by Krokant
Fun puzzle and not as difficult as the rating suggests.
on 8. November 2023, 19:24 by Geb
This is certainly the hardest puzzle I've attempted but I'm glad I stuck with it. Satisfying to get there in the end!
---
First of all, congratulations on finishing your first "5star" puzzle and thanks for the feedback. This puzzle can definitely be quite tricky and its difficulty depends strongly on how used one is to perform Sudoku based on colors and/or letters and how the 9 cages interact with it. If you have any feedback how the 'beauty' of the puzzle can be improved, feel free to let me know :)
-- ElChiglia
on 25. October 2023, 11:18 by Possum
definitely the hardest of the series so far, but resolved just as beautiful as the others
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thank you for the nice feedback and for solving all those 6 loop puzzles. Highly appreciated!
- ElChiglia
