A Zippery Slope
(Published on 10. November 2023, 11:30 by Flinty)
A big thank you to gdc who not only encouraged me to construct a Zipper puzzle, but also helped me work through the flow of a few different ideas particularly towards the end of the solve. There were 3 or 4 working versions and this was the one we settled on, so hopefully you enjoy it as much as we did.
Thank you Jaze for the constraint idea.
Difficulty is no doubt relative to experience with Zipper Lines.
2* is fair, especially if you're familiar with the constraint.
- Normal Sudoku Rules Apply.
- Zipper Lines: Pairs of digits that are an equal distance from the centre of a Lavendar 'Zipper Line' must sum to that digit in the centre of the line.
- For convenience the central digit of each line has been highlighted with a dot.
Thank you to CatusSDK for live solving: Link. A very enjoyable watch, with some admittedly great logic and incredible perseverance to subvert parts of the intended flowpacth - Haha - I hope CatusSDK doesn't take offence / mind me saying this.
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.
Do you want to solve more?
Click here to search for more Zipper Lines puzzles on LMD.
Solution code: Row 8 digits please.
Comments
on 17. November 2023, 22:24 by Flinty
Added a live solve link.
on 11. November 2023, 22:36 by Flinty
Thanks all for the comments. I’m proud of the puzzle. Catus that would be awesome, thank you. I’ll add a link when it goes live.
on 11. November 2023, 16:02 by EmpyClaw
I read the comment to do other zipper puzzles before tackling this one, but I only read it after completing! Haha! I found this to be pretty tricky at times, but I made it through and had a lot of fun! I suspect with some more experience, I might have been a bit more efficient. Lovely puzzle—thanks for setting!
on 10. November 2023, 18:20 by gdc
Very nice take on the zipper lines ruleset! I agree with 2 stars for difficulty but also understand where @ViKingPrime is coming from. If you need to solve a introduction-level zipper-line puzzle to get familiar with the constraint, please make sure to check this one out after that - it's a treat!
on 10. November 2023, 17:14 by ViKingPrime
I would rank this as a bit more advanced than some of the other Zipper puzzles out there - beautiful setting but the two-star difficulty feels out of place. I would encourage people to cut their teeth on another Zipper puzzle or two before tackling this one - but do come back to this one, as it is a great puzzle. Thanks for setting!
