This puzzle was made for The Book Wyrm as a 2023 Secret Santa puzzle on the CTC Discord server. They asked for something crazy and non-standard, so I came up with this Japanese Sums x RGB Akari idea.
Rules
Japanese Sums: Shade some cells in the grid and fill all unshaded cells with a digit from 1 to 9 such that no digit repeats within a row/column. Numbers outside the grid give the sums of each contiguous segment of unshaded cells for that row/column, in order (left to right/top to bottom).
A question mark (?) represents any single digit, but not a leading 0 in a two digit number. A hyphen (-) represents a single unknown sum. An asterisk (*) represents any number of unknown sums, including none at all.
RGB Akari: Place some coloured light bulbs in unshaded cells so every unshaded cell is illuminated. Light bulbs illuminate their own cell as well as every cell seen in a straight line up to either the first shaded cell or the edge of the grid. Light bulbs cannot illuminate each other. A light bulb can be red (R), green (G), or blue (B). Clues within the grid are unshaded and give the colour of the light(s) illuminating them.
In this puzzle, red bulbs may only appear in low cells (123), green bulbs in middle cells (456), and blue bulbs in high cells (789).
Example Puzzle
https://tinyurl.com/ymdeofdsSolving Link
http://tinyurl.com/ywv2nt3pSolution code: Using 0 for shaded cells: column 9, then row 6 (24 digits)
on 23. June 2024, 06:36 by Agent
Very cool interactions with the Akari RGB!
on 11. March 2024, 20:54 by Christounet
Wow, one of the hardest Japanese Sums I have ever solved ! Very cool interactions with the Akari RGB rulest ! First time solving an Akari for me btw, so it might feel easier for those acquainted with the "lighting" logic. Some tricky steps here and there to resolve some of the sums for me. Thanks for this unique experience :)
on 11. March 2024, 18:26 by alexc
Adjusted size of example images.
on 11. March 2024, 18:09 by alexc
Added example and updated estimated difficulty.
on 11. March 2024, 01:53 by alexc
Added context to title and opening note.