Arrows and cages
(Published on 2. April 2024, 17:14 by egubachu)
Note
This is a a slightly more elaborate puzzle. With this puzzle I tried to encourage the solver to make use of the specific layout of arrows and cages to solve the puzzle, i.e., make more use of local reasoning than global scanning.
Some commenters have mentioned below that they felt they needed to bifurcate halfway through their solve. Indeed, this puzzle does not give in very easily and maintains some difficulty level until the end. There is, however, a clean path to the solution, and while deriving some fairly immediate contradictions will help during the solve it is not necessary to make arbitrary choices and see whether they lead to anything. To find the logical solution, it helps to not overly annotate the puzzle.
Happy solving!
The puzzle
Rules
Normal sudoku rules apply: Place the digits 1 to 9 once each in every row, column, and box.
All variant rules are standard:
- Digits in killer cages sum to the amount indicated in the top left corner.
- Digits on arrows sum to the amount indicated by the digit in the circle at the base.
- Little killer clues give the sum of the digits along the indicated diagonals.
Solve online
Solution code: Row 5
Comments
on 4. April 2024, 03:30 by Volkner
I really enjoyed that break in. Thank you.
on 3. April 2024, 12:05 by sujoyku
Thank you for this nice puzzle, egubachu! I have given 4 stars difficulty as well and my solving experience seems to resemble that one of Playmaker6174. After taking some time for the break-in, I got a lot of the grid going and reached a point where each clue seemed to have exactly two options left. I lost patience and made a guess hoping to run into a contradiction that might lead me towards logic that I had not appreciated. Unfortunately, I had guessed right and went on to solve all of the rest. I think it would be worth if you pointed out the endgame strategy (especially for Boxes 1-3) in a hidden comment.
on 3. April 2024, 11:55 by egubachu
Thank you so much for leaving a comment, @Playmaker6174. The feedback is much appreciated! I was actually quite proud that the ending wasn't a triviality, but it is definitely not meant to be bifurcated. The logic kind of progresses clockwise around the puzzle, and the final part of the solve should have some similarities with a previous part with different constraints, but perhaps the digits to enter the final part were a bit harder to spot.
I must also say that I'm still calibrating how many stars to give a new puzzle here. I'm new here and once I gave a puzzle four stars, which definitely wasn't that difficult, and perhaps in this case I underestimated it.
Either way, thank you for your thoughtful comment. Your feedback definitely counts!
on 3. April 2024, 11:25 by Playmaker6174
Jeez, that was *way* harder than 3 stars. I really want to love this puzzle entirely (especially how that opening works), but it's the parts near the end that dragged the entire experience down for me because I couldn't find anything nice for those parts and eventually had to bifurcate to proceed.
on 3. April 2024, 09:46 by egubachu
Very nice! Congratulations on your first 3-star solve @latters176!
on 3. April 2024, 09:00 by latters176
1:24.18 for me - although I'm definitely a beginner! First 3* puzzle I've solved, lovely logical path, thanks for making it!
