Balanced Ride (Roller Coaster/Cave)
(Published on 23. October 2023, 11:00 by Piatato)
This is a combination of Roller coaster and Cave, where digits on walls are counted as negative in regards to the roller coaster clues. It's inspired by this puzzle, which made me realize that introducing negative integers can lead to a lot of fun. :-)
Rules:
Latin square: Place the digits 1-9 exactly once in each row and column.
Cave: Shade some cells to form a cave, in such a way that all unshaded cells are orthogonally connected and all shaded cells are orthogonally connected by other shaded cells to an edge of the grid.
Roller coaster: Draw a single non-branching, non-intersecting loop that travels orthogonally through the centers of some cells. Clues to the left of rows indicate the sum of digits on horizontal segments of the loop in that row, in the correct order. Clues above columns indicate the sum of digits on vertical segments of the loop in that column, in the correct order.
Interaction: Digits placed on shaded cells are counted as negative.
"?" represents any digit from 0 to 9, while "-?" represents any digit from -1 to -9.
All clues are given for every row and column, except where "..." is a given clue. "..." represents an undisclosed amount (0-4) of clues. As an example, in row 3, the first two clues are given, and then it's unknown what happens further to the right.
Solution code: The digits in column 8 followed by the length of the longest block of shaded cells in each row
Comments
on 1. April 2024, 13:42 by Lucx
Phantastisches Rätsel! Wirklich eine großartige Konstruktion! Und vielen Dank, Piatato an den schnellen Hinweise, dass ein Fragezeichen natürlich nie größer als 9 ist... Wer Regeln beachtet ist klar im Vorteil ;-)
on 11. November 2023, 12:12 by filuta
One of those puzzles that are much easier with the correct rules in mind. And yeah, the variety of the logic required is remarkable.
on 7. November 2023, 19:57 by wildbush7
The beginning was very tricky but everything fell into place beautifully after that! Loved it.
on 4. November 2023, 22:17 by lerroyy
Very nice puzzle and smooth solve!
on 27. October 2023, 13:43 by tonald
interesting
on 26. October 2023, 15:45 by Christounet
Superb ! So many pieces of nice logic here. If I were to pick my prefered one, I'd say column 4, very subtle and seemingly not significant, but very powerful ! Thanks :)
on 26. October 2023, 10:00 by KNT
fantastic as always, thanks!
on 26. October 2023, 07:22 by mnasti2
Ditto everyone else, brilliant!
on 24. October 2023, 21:54 by Jesper
Fantastic!
on 24. October 2023, 11:47 by marcmees
very nice. thanks.
on 24. October 2023, 01:03 by ONeill
Very clever puzzle, thank you
on 23. October 2023, 20:07 by Myxo
Amazing puzzle, so impressive what variety of logic you got out of that ruleset :)
on 23. October 2023, 19:03 by samuel1997
Brilliant!
on 23. October 2023, 14:59 by Snookerfan
Brilliant puzzle! Keeps interesting and challenging until the end. Thank you
on 23. October 2023, 14:05 by Agent
Neat puzzle, a nice variety or arithmetic deductions!
on 23. October 2023, 13:04 by wisty
Beautiful logic! This was so much fun to solve. It makes complete use of its full ruleset,, and features interesting deductions right until the end, and it isn't too intense or tricky to figure out where to look next. The most difficult deductions are also the most rewarding, with exciting memorable reasoning always followed by some smoother natural progress. It amazes me that people can set things like this!
