Chaos Destruction X-Sums
(Published on 18. February 2024, 08:07 by lepton)
Region is a set of nine orthogonally connected cells containing the digits 1-9. Place TEN non-overlapping regions into the grid. Digits may not repeat in any row, column, or region. Cells outside regions do not contain digits.
Clues inside or outside the grid are X-sums, and give the sum of the first X cells in the direction of the arrow, where X is the first digit in a non-empty cell from the arrow. i.e. an X-sum clue of 8 could be satisfied by [empty] 3 5. All digits in the X-sum belong to the same region. All digits farther away from the clue, if any, MUST NOT belong to the same region. Clues with ? can be any positive number but not zero. X-sums may not extend beyond the edge of the grid, i.e. X must be smaller than the distance from the edge. Clue cells are not part of any region, and the number in the clue cell does not count towards any other X-sum.
Play this puzzle on Sudokupad.
Example
Example with 9 regions
Solution code: Column 9 without empty cells
Comments
on 20. February 2024, 17:33 by OGRussHood
I'm a sucker for any puzzle where "normal sudoku rules" go out the window. And you know my motto: "The madder, the better".
on 19. February 2024, 20:48 by bansalsaab
Absolute madness
on 19. February 2024, 13:11 by Snookerfan
Very nice and monstrously hard! Took me ages to complete and it hurt my brain. Thank you
on 19. February 2024, 06:32 by madhupt
Solved the puzzle without the fix and reached a dual-solution position right at the end. Was really frustrated before I refreshed the page and saw the edit. Very hard but very nice. The arrows really disambiguated the cells but it consistently remained tough before it all miraculously yielded the digits. Thanks for sharing this.
on 19. February 2024, 05:29 by sanabas
Great fun. Need to be very careful with the colouring.
on 19. February 2024, 04:13 by Lion Crow
Row 8 seems to need two of the digit 6 in it, and the right hand 31 clue should be 25, or regions overlap?
on 18. February 2024, 21:53 by madhupt
Solved the puzzle without the fix and reached a dual-solution position right at the end. Was really frustrated before I refreshed the page and saw the edit. Very hard but very nice. The arrows really disambiguated the cells but it consistently remained tough before it all miraculously yielded the digits. Thanks for sharing this.
on 18. February 2024, 18:52 by lepton
Fixed: added missing ? clue to R10C12
on 18. February 2024, 14:36 by gfoot
The fog is a nice added surprise!
I really enjoyed this one, great logic throughout and excellent use of the fog
