XV*Magic 4
(Published on 21. December 2024, 13:33 by NurglesGift)
Normal sudoku rules apply.
Cells connected by an X must sum to 10.
Cells connected by an V must sum to 5.
All X's and V's are given.
There is a 3x3 magic square somewhere in the grid.
(A magic square is a 3x3 square with the digits 1-9 where all rows, columns and diagonals have the same sum)
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Feel free to recommend this puzzle to anyone.
Feel free to take special rules for your own puzzle.
Feel free to give feedback.
Bless you!
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Solution code: give the digits of column 1 (top to bottom)
Comments
on 23. December 2024, 15:31 by Marigold
Always a fan of your xv puzzle, this one is the greatest so far (imo), keep up the good work!!!
on 22. December 2024, 04:50 by TheNineElements
Solve Time: 57:39
I rated this 4/5 difficulty.
Wow, great puzzle! My new favorite VX puzzle! I really enjoyed a previous XV*magic puzzle of yours - but this one was a step up in both complexity/difficulty & my enjoyment/satisfaction.
The previous puzzle I solved didn't require finding the magic square to color the whole grid, but this one almost certainly did (at least as far as I could tell).
I spent maybe 5-10 minutes at the beginning trying to color without working on the magic square, but I QUICKLY got stuck and then had to actually think for a while. But boy was it worth it!
The logic of placing the magic square in the early stages was beautiful and a bit insane (in a good way) in my opinion. I used some of my preliminary coloring to determine exactly where the magic square could go, but once I spotted a few different tricks that arose from the XV rules, I was able to whittle down all of the square placements except for the only valid location. That was one of the coolest XV logic sequences I've ever seen -- and quite tough as well, but in all fairness the logic was definitely findable.
Even after I placed the square there were a lot of intermediate/advanced XV techniques for coloring the remainder of the grid.
For much of my solve, I missed a key coloring trick that arises from the magic square, but once I spotted that trick, the rest of the coloring collapsed. If I had spotted that trick earlier, I probably would have found this puzzle easier - but nonetheless it was a really cool idea.
As for the endgame, after coloring about 75-80% of cells, the magic square disambiguated several of the colors, but as is typical for my solves, I went ahead and just colored the entire grid before placing the digits. The final satisfaction of filling in all the colors at the same time is irresistible.
This puzzle had some amazing logic and used some tricks I didn't even consider in the previous puzzle in the series I solved. The magic square placement was such a cool revelation. The geometry of the magic square combined with the XV coloring is simply brilliant.
If it is possible to color the grid before finding the magic square, I would be very surprised - but I would love to see a different approach to solving this. Hopefully Mark or Simon from CTC give this puzzle a stab so we can see how they approach it.
Top tier puzzle! This ruleset is more brilliant than I originally thought!
on 21. December 2024, 17:57 by NurglesGift
Thank you, glad you like it, might be the last one this year :)
on 21. December 2024, 17:28 by Bionic Cheese
Great stuff , thank you for setting these super puzzles
on 21. December 2024, 17:04 by timyoth
first one of this series where the magic square is used before the disambiguation (for me). Adds a nice bit of dificulty. Very nice.
on 21. December 2024, 16:49 by Zerobrain
Pretty awesome! Love the constraint!
on 21. December 2024, 16:18 by Ragna
Wow! Fun puzzle! Thank you. :-)
on 21. December 2024, 13:33 by NurglesGift
3-4*
