A Totally Balanced Approach
(Published on 19. October 2023, 19:52 by gdc)
There is a new ruleset in town: the Zipper Line! This has been invented by Jaze on the CtC fan discord server. You can find more Zipper Line puzzles by Jaze there. I decided to also give this a try and had a blast setting with these lines. Hope you enjoy!
- Normal sudoku rules apply.
- Digits an equal distance from the center of a lavender 'Zipper Line' must sum to the digit in the middle of that line.
Play Online: CtC, CtC (alt. link), f-puzzles
The alternative link above contains shapes that are meant to assist in matching up pairs summing to the central cell of the line. Those shapes are only there to simplify scanning and have no additional meaning besides that.
Example Puzzle
Here is a 4 by 4 example from Jaze (left) and it's solution (right). Notice how the ends of each line sum to the digit in the center of the line. Additionally, the long line also contains two more sums 4=1+3=1+3=2+2. You can play the example here.
Difficulty
I am rather unsure on how to evaluate the difficulty on this one. The Zipper Lines puzzle by Jaze got a rated 2/5 in the discord puzzle archive so I'll use this as a starting point. However, some testers on the CtC discord (thanks everyone!) said that my take on the ruleset was slightly harder, so I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a 3 star when the user ratings come in.
Solution code: Row 1 from left to right (9 digits, no spaces)
Comments
on 3. May 2024, 00:13 by chain.reader
1st restart: Wait what?
2nd restart: no, that's not solvable.. am I crazy?
3rd restart: ooohhhhhhhhh, right.
on 2. April 2024, 18:06 by Agent
Very easy and smooth!
on 20. January 2024, 04:35 by PinkNickels
not a huge fan of zipper puzzles in general, but i really enjoyed this one. well done!
on 10. January 2024, 12:11 by marty_sears
I am very late to the party here but this was awesome! Lovely to go back and see your first zipper line puzzle. What a brilliant way to showcase the pure zipper ruleset. There were so many satisfying sneaky bits
on 23. November 2023, 15:15 by KingIsulgard
Ooff that last disambiguitation was rough. I think this maybe deserves 3 stars :D.
I even restarted it, thinking I made a mistake or something, only to end up at the exact same spot and got stuck for a while.
on 6. November 2023, 19:11 by Flinty
Excellent Puzzle.
on 26. October 2023, 23:59 by zondebok
One of the first puzzles I've managed to choose from here and then actually complete. A fantastic puzzle and a cool new line!
on 23. October 2023, 00:02 by Schma
Great puzzle and very nice ruleset indeed!
on 21. October 2023, 19:38 by WildEnte
Very nice! I very much like this new line type!
on 20. October 2023, 20:48 by gdc
Add alt. link with shapes that simplify scanning
on 20. October 2023, 18:22 by gdc
@saddem: the solution code is in a hidden comment, otherwise I would've hidden it so it's only visible after solving. But yeah, there are quite some spoilers on the breakin logic and I'm totally fine with that.
on 20. October 2023, 18:02 by saddem
Wow nice puzzle, i broke it the first 3 times at the break-in because ** SPOILER** there was a scenario that i didn't consider.
Edit: When i read the comments then were a ton of spoilers, even the solution code, so ignore my spoiler warning
on 20. October 2023, 17:51 by Blashyrkh
This is how I like new rulesets! Simple, but opening up lots of interesting logic possibilities.
Skillful implementation as well, with the way it starts off very easy and then ramps up the difficulty.
Hats off to Jaze and gdc, I smell a CtC feature coming your way ;)
on 20. October 2023, 16:39 by 28righthand
Wow, just wow!
on 20. October 2023, 15:53 by Caconym
Had to restart several times because I kept accidentally doing arrow logic in box 5 ruling out the correct candidate in box 8, but once I realized the logic was really fun and I enjoyed the puzzle a lot
on 20. October 2023, 15:32 by ViKingPrime
Lovely bit of logic here! I think Zipper lines could definitely become a common constraint.
on 20. October 2023, 14:37 by Rollo
Very nice new concept :-)!
on 20. October 2023, 14:19 by WeakSolver
Great puzzle! Really fun ruleset.
Based on my time I'd say 2 star
on 20. October 2023, 14:01 by vorash00
smoooooooooth loved it
on 20. October 2023, 10:29 by barakinio
Incredible, great rule set. Can't wait to see more puzzles use it
on 20. October 2023, 08:40 by fitzie
the innovation never stops. great ruleset and a wonderful setting to introduce it (to me at least). i like how these purple lines seem to grow in power as the solve continues.
For stramosk: i hit that struggle but it was because I kept thinking about neighboring cells summing and not ends of lines summing. also, think about what r7c5 could be.
on 20. October 2023, 07:07 by Sinuit
I liked that ruleset and the puzzle a lot. For me, there was at least one point in the midsolve that was definitely harder than two stars.
on 20. October 2023, 05:24 by Dermerlin
On difficulty rating:
I guess it's 3 stars, if it's the solver's first puzzle with this ruleset. If the solver is familiar with the ruleset, it should be 2 stars.
Once i cracked the logic on the ruleset (took some time) i solved it with a good flow.
on 20. October 2023, 02:22 by gdc
@stramosk since you've solved this now, I think you found your answer. The digit you are talking about is very restricted but there is a (singular) home for it in the central box.
on 20. October 2023, 01:02 by stramosk
I have to admit, I have restarted the puzzle about 10 times and I cannot get it to work. I'm placing a 9 in box 5 that forces an 8 in box 4 and then a 4. But then there is no spot for a 4 in box 5. Maybe I'm going insane ¯_(ツ)_/¯
on 19. October 2023, 23:53 by mihil99
Took me a bit longer than I would've liked, but loved exploring a totally new ruleset! Started of quite smooth, made an error so I restarted, then I got stuck for a while on one part but eventually I figured it out. Thanks for the great puzzle! :)
on 19. October 2023, 23:05 by Soothsayer
Nice setting. Thank you!
I too, like Silverscree, fell to using arrow logic a couple of times
on 19. October 2023, 21:39 by Silverscree
This had some nice, fresh-feeling logic! I broke the puzzle at one point by incorrectly pencil marking, and I think it was one of the (many) times that I had used arrow logic instead of zipper logic. Thankfully I caught it. Thank you!
on 19. October 2023, 20:39 by gdc
@theParad0x Glad you enjoyed! There are a total of 4 puzzles at the moment from the inventor with different sizes (9x9,8x8,6x6,4x4). Only the 9x9 is archived but the others can be found in the testing thread.
on 19. October 2023, 20:19 by theParad0x
This is an awesome rule set!! Really enjoyed it, I will definitely check out the discord to check Jaze's puzzle. Thanks for sharing
