Cubic Ring-Ring (9x9x9)
(Published on 1. January 2024, 05:00 by Ambrose)
Rules
Draw a set of "rectangular" loops through centers of cells on the faces of the cube which pass through all white cells and no black cells. Edges from two loops may cross orthogonally but may not turn at the intersection or otherwise overlap.
What "rectangular" loop means is: a closed path where all interior angles are 90 degree angles. A loop may use one, two, or all three sides of the cube. Crossing from one face to another does not count as an angle. In the case where it uses all three sides, the loop will have only three interior angles, as shown.
The example image shows some valid loops in green, and invalid loops in red.
Solve online:
Penpa+ (with answer check on green lines)
Huge credit to Wisty, whose Gamecube Ring-ring introduced me to this variant! Check it out!
Solution code: Enter the contents of the cells in the 2nd row from the bottom, left to right, encoded as follows: C = Corner, H = Horizontal segment, V = Vertical segment, X = Crossing segments.
Comments
on 29. February 2024, 16:53 by glum_hippo
Really nice for a coffee break, though I usually spend mine drinking actual coffee.
on 13. January 2024, 15:13 by PrimeWeasel
Good stuff
on 1. January 2024, 16:28 by topoi
Very fun new (to me) puzzle type! The only thing was, the cube becomes extremely busy, visually, and it's difficult to see what's going on among all the spaghetti. I don't know how that can be fixed, but would be great.
on 1. January 2024, 13:10 by MicroStudy
bananaphone
on 1. January 2024, 09:31 by Christounet
Original and fun ! Thanks :)
on 1. January 2024, 09:04 by jessica6
very good. but you have to be careful not to connect the wrong rings.
on 1. January 2024, 08:31 by wooferzfg
Really fun! The solve path was smooth/easy enough that it felt like the puzzle solved itself.
on 1. January 2024, 07:51 by Myxo
Wonderful :)
on 1. January 2024, 06:46 by KNT
very smooth :-)
on 1. January 2024, 06:27 by Ambrose
Clarify answer check
on 1. January 2024, 06:17 by Nylimb
Thanks for the fun puzzle, which is the first of this kind that I've ever done.
I had trouble using Penpa; the lines that I drew didn't show up. This may be an incompatibility with my old computer and browser, but if anyone else has the same problem, just press ctrl-Z after drawing each segment. Also, the answer check didn't work, because I used several colors for the lines. When I changed them all to green, it worked.
on 1. January 2024, 05:13 by Ambrose
Added credit
