Thermal Balance
(Published on 16. July 2024, 16:20 by gdc)
This puzzle is similar to yin-yang/negator puzzles, but uses another modifier (hot/cold cells) instead. Thanks to the testers. Enjoy!
- Sudoku: Normal Sudoku rules apply.
- Yin Yang: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells are orthogonally connected and all unshaded cells are orthogonally connected. Each 2x2 area of the grid contains shaded and unshaded cells.
- Hot/Cold: The value of a shaded cell is one more than it's digit. The value of an unshaded cell is one less than it's digit.
- Arrows: Values along an arrow sum to the value in the attached circle.
- Kropki: Values separated by white dots differ by 1. Not all dots are given.
Solution code: The shaded (hot) digits in row 8, left to right.
Comments
on 16. September 2024, 11:11 by AsgarArn
This was an entertaining solve with new concept to approach, smooth consistent solve!
on 8. August 2024, 16:26 by ThymePass
My first experience solving a yin/yang and hot/cold sudoku and it was lovely. Thanks for putting this together :)
on 5. August 2024, 01:33 by fajoogaloo
Loved the logic of the hot/cold. Very smooth solution path. Great puzzle :)
on 2. August 2024, 20:31 by mathpesto
Gorgeous setting! You managed to make a very approachable puzzle with a difficult ruleset.
on 19. July 2024, 15:00 by Wuschel
Nice and easy. Great puzzle!
on 18. July 2024, 19:35 by madhupt
Fantastic!
on 18. July 2024, 10:26 by Nemefish
Very fun puzzle. If you know the tricks of Yin Yang this will be a breeze
on 17. July 2024, 20:10 by Big Tiger
Aside from spending 45 minutes going down the wrong path because I entered a wrong digit by accident, I had a lot of fun with this one. Challenging enough to be stimulating without being so hard that it's just depressing lol.
on 17. July 2024, 13:28 by Perladel
Very enjoyable!
on 17. July 2024, 05:29 by SamuPiano
Great use of the hot/cold! After working with a similar constraint for a puzzle I'm releasing soon, this was a nice one!
on 17. July 2024, 02:31 by ViKingPrime
Absolutely beautiful. The Hot/Cold constraint is one of my favourites and it's used to perfect effect with the colouring; feels like such a natural pairing, hopefully we see more puzzles like this from you!
on 17. July 2024, 00:04 by rictech
Excellent puzzle! Very cool how it came together. Love the yin/yang hot/cold idea!
on 16. July 2024, 21:06 by wuc
Wow. Approachable great puzzle. Refreshing hot cold rule. Great flow. I loved solving. Thx.
on 16. July 2024, 19:46 by sujoyku
Thank you for this fantastic puzzle, gdc! I have to admit I was a little anxious in the beginning since Yin Yang is not really my forte, but the solve path was telegraphed so well and full of fun deductions that I am glad I gave it a try. Unfortunately, I confused hot and cold at one point which forced me to rewind. At this point, I had figured out so much though, that I could quickly finish after I had corrected the flawed logic. Gorgeous setting! Thank you for setting and sharing!
on 16. July 2024, 18:29 by Abdul the Killer
Like all your puzzles, this contains some delightful and unexpected logic. Bravo!
on 16. July 2024, 17:10 by gdc
@Guillem98 for this one I didn't decide the shading upfront but incrementally deduced the shading as I added more clues. But for other puzzles (like suguru's surge), I went the other way around and worked backwards from a set of only 600 (ish) solutions with a pre-defined shading. Which approach is better (imo) depends on how many local versus global constraints are used.
on 16. July 2024, 17:00 by Guillem98
I loved solving this puzzle, I personally have never seen a combination of the rules set like this.
I have a question for the setter (out of curiosity), do you draw the cold/hot path first? Or as the puzzle demands?
on 16. July 2024, 16:49 by chippers
Lovely, thoroughly enjoyed the solve.
