Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

After I recently solved the last puzzles of the "Liar Japanese Sums" serie by Niverio, I decided to set one myself. Inspiration came in the form of a snake hybrid, to which I added a layer of ambiguity. I also set a solvable example puzzle that you may want to try first. I think it is fun as well and quite different from the main puzzle, as I used another logical approach for the construction. Testing feedback placed difficulty between 4 and 5, with a rather challenging opening. No bifurcation required. I'll post the intended path for that opening in a hidden comment for anyone interested. Have fun solving !

The puzzle :

Play on Penpa

Play on Sudokupad

Rules :

- Normal sudoku rules apply.

- Snake : Travelling through the grid is a snake, moving orthogonally from cell to cell. It may touch itself diagonally but not orthogonally. Its head and tail have to be located.

- Liar japanese sums : Clues outside the grid indicate either the sums of the continuous blocks of snake cells or the sums of the contiguous blocks of non-snake cells in that row or column. For every clued row or column, 2 different sets are provided (Left / Right for rows, Top / Bottom for columns.) One set is correct, with all the correct sums in the correct order.(Always left to right or top to bottom.) The other set is a lie (As a whole, individual parts of the liar set can still be sometimes correct). To clarify, for each row/column, the solver has to determine which set of clues is correct, and if it applies to the snake cells or to the non-snake cells.

- Cipher : In the sets of clues, a "..." means any number of clues, including none. A "?" is a stand in for any digit 0-9, but for a double digit number, the first digit may not be 0. No clue (correct or incorrect) can be equal to 0. Clues are encrypted. Each distinct letter represents some unique digit from 0-9.

Example puzzle (without the cipher) :

Play on Penpa

Play on Sudokupad