Strandwich
(Published on 24. August 2024, 14:00 by sujoyku)
I like to thank RockyRoer for a helpful discussion. Moreover, I like to thank all testers and especially Calvinball, CaptZebraCakes and MattDdraig for their detailed feedback on the puzzle. The difficulty could be around 3-3.5 stars. Feel free to tell in the comments how you liked this variant and what you think of the puzzle. I wish you joyful solving!
- Normal sudoku rules apply, i.e. each row, column and 3x3 region has to contain the digits from 1 to 9 once each.
- Quadruple: Digits in a circle must appear in the four surrounding cells.
- Strandwich clues: Draw two strands into the grid that connect Row 1 and Row 9. A strand is a continuous one-cell wide path that moves from cell to cell diagonally or vertically, but never moves horizontally.
Both strands must be Renban lines. i.e. they must contain the digits from 1 to 9 once each.
The two strands must intersect each row in exactly one cell. Clues outside the grid are so-called Strandwich clues, i.e. Sandwich clues with respect to the strand cells. A outside clue on the left indicates the sum of all digits between the two strand cells in the respective row. Any column with an outside clue on top of it must contain precisely two strand cells and the clue indicates the sum of all digits between these two cells.
Here you can solve the puzzle online:
Solution code: Lefthand strand from top to bottom (9 digits in total)
Comments
on 7. September 2024, 09:40 by softie
Very cool puzzle. I expected it to be tricky to identify the renbans and then smooth to complete after, and it was exactly the reverse!
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Thank you for your comment, softie! I am glad you liked the puzzle. I can also see why one expects what you thought would be happening, but the second phase is indeed the tougher one.
Kind regards, sujoyku
on 2. September 2024, 09:38 by Lovejoy
Note to self. If you're really stuck then go back and check you didn't miss a rule. In this case "Renban"
Another great puzzle!
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Thank you for your comment, Lovejoy! I am glad you enjoyed the puzzle. The renban condition is indeed crucial (and so easy to forget when you dive into the sum clues), I hope it did not give you too much headache.
Kind regards, sujoyku
on 24. August 2024, 23:34 by sorryimLate
Wow, what a surprising turn after "Mystery Snack". Another fun ruleset and a wonderful puzzle! The beginning is quite approachable, but later in the solve I stared at the grid for a long time without seeing some obvious sudoku. So I'm not sure how hard it really was, but it was not easy. Thank you so much for setting!
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Thank you for your comment, sorryimLate! Actually, this puzzle had been finished some while before the 6x6 puzzle pack. But I needed to find some courage to publish it. :)
I am glad you liked the puzzle. Your described experience very much fits with my own test-solves. I do not think the puzzle is hard in the sense that it uses very advanced logical deductions. But it requires quite an amount of scanning, sometimes in unexpected areas of the grid. So it was tough to balance theses aspects for the estimated difficulty.
Kind regards, sujoyku
on 24. August 2024, 19:44 by cybers
Great ruleset and puzzle - so much fun to solve!
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Thank you for your kind feedback, cybers! I am glad you liked the variant and had a fun solve.
Kind regards, sujoyku
on 24. August 2024, 15:05 by Calvinball
I certainly hope you're not done with this ruleset!
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Thank you for your comment, Calvinball! I am glad that you liked the puzzle. And although I admit to being quite "infected" with pea lines setting at the moment, I am no way near done with this ruleset. I have some other ideas for line constraints that the strands could carry.
Kind regards, sujoyku
