Skyscraper Sums Deconstruction
(Published on 24. January 2024, 04:07 by Tacosian)
I recently solved Chaotic Skyscraper Sums by Florian Wortmann and Basic Skysums by heliopolix, and I fell in love with the skyscraper sums constraint. I realized that a deconstruction grid could provide an interesting twist to the logic that I saw in those puzzles, and this is the result of that idea. This puzzle is quite hard, but I assure you that bifurcation is never necessary.
Rules- Fill the grid with nine non-overlapping 3x3 square regions, such that each region contains the digits 1-9 once each and no digit repeats in any row or column. Cells outside regions do not contain digits.
- Digits in the grid represent skyscrapers of that height. Higher skyscrapers obscure smaller ones. A clue outside the grid is the sum of all visible skyscrapers in the corresponding row/column from the clue's direction of view. 'Less than' clues are allowed to be 0, meaning that no digits are seen.
The following image is an example of a valid grid in which there are 6 regions containing the digits 1-6. It is not a playable puzzle; it is only intended for demonstration purposes.
SudokuPad link: SudokuPad
Penpa+ link: Penpa+
Solution code: From top to bottom, column 8 followed by column 10. If a cell does not contain any digits, enter 'X'. The solution code for column 4 followed by column 5 of the example would be 46X5321XX4612XXX.
Comments
on 16. July 2024, 14:04 by Vollkorn
Wonderful Puzzle. Top!!!
on 5. April 2024, 22:28 by Agent
Outstanding puzzle! Very clean logic.
on 13. March 2024, 09:06 by Oripy
What a beautiful puzzle! I'm glad it was recommended to me. The break in seems impossible at first but once you finally find it it is so rewarding!
on 6. March 2024, 13:51 by Fool on Hill
Great puzzle - the detailed interaction between the clues and the deconstruction logic had features I hadn't seen before and was very tightly constructed.
on 3. March 2024, 23:33 by Silverstep
very happy to be the tenth person to leave a beauty rating and see the 100% pop up. I like the class of puzzles that is virtually impossible to solve if you don't know certain theorems; and yet becomes painfully trivial once you know it.
on 28. February 2024, 11:44 by rubbeng
Wonderful!
on 30. January 2024, 23:59 by Jesper
Great puzzle, thanks!
on 25. January 2024, 14:08 by MagnusJosefsson
Fantastic puzzle! A really cool demonstration of how powerful deconstruction logic can be, given how unconstrained the grid seems at first.
on 25. January 2024, 13:34 by sanabas
incredible puzzle
on 24. January 2024, 19:47 by samuel1997
Tacosian, take a bow! I am speechless about this puzzle! I can't even believe that I can solve this puzzle!
on 24. January 2024, 14:13 by Myxo
Amazing puzzle, I loved it!
