Fillomino Deconstruction Sudoku with Loop
(Published on 28. December 2024, 04:27 by egubachu)
This puzzle was my Secret Santa gift for Chefofdeath. Also a big thanks to SamuPiano and Yttrio for their epic solving efforts and very helpful feedback during testing!
For a more timeless experience, I removed the Christmas themed back story here, but a link to the Christmas themed version is also included below.
Rules
Place nine non-overlapping 3x3 boxes in the grid and shade all the remaining cells. The shaded cells are fillomino cells, and the unshaded in the 3x3 boxes cells are sudoku cells. Divide the fillomino cells into regions so that no two fillomino regions of the same size share an edge. Draw an orthogonal loop through the fillomino cells, which never passes through any cells more than once. The loop passes through every fillomino region exactly once, but doesn't necessarily visit all their cells. Furthermore, every cell on the loop shares an edge or a corner with a sudoku cell, but the loop never passes through sudoku cells.
Place a digit from 1 to 9 in each cell, including all fillomino cells, with the following constraints:
- In every row, column, or 3x3 box, there are no repetitions among the digits in sudoku cells. However, a digit in a sudoku cell may appear in the same row or column in a fillomino cell.
- A sudoku cell may never contain the same digit as any of the fillomino cells it shares an edge or a corner with.
- A digit in a fillomino cell indicates the size of its region.
- A digit on the loop indicates the number of times that digit occurs on the loop.
- Blue circles: A digit on a blue circle indicates the number of cells in its surrounding 3x3 block that are on the loop.
- Blue diamonds: A digit on a blue diamond indicates the number of cells that occur on the loop within its row and column combined.
- Cages: Digits within a cage sum to the indicated total. Any two sudoku cells within a cage cannot contain the same digit. In other words, if some cells within a cage contain the same digit, then at most one of them is a sudoku cell.
- Outer clues (bottom/right): A number on a white dot in the panel outside the grid indicates the sum of the digits that occur on the loop in its row or column.
Solve online
Solution code: Row 8
Comments
on 28. December 2024, 15:32 by SamuPiano
This was probably the second-most difficult puzzle I managed to solve all year, but it was an incredible journey! With a really consistent difficulty the whole way through and an amazing break-in, this was thrilling.
It was a 5-hour journey to get through this one, but it always felt like I was making slow and steady progress to understand it better. Thanks for having me test this behemoth, egubachu!
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I cannot thank you enough for helping me test this Samu! You’ve helped me immensely and I’m so grateful that you never gave up on it! Thank you so much!
on 28. December 2024, 08:55 by askaksaksask
This is such a cool puzzle. There is an immense amount of cluing up front and it was a real challenge to cut through some of the noise to start. I usually solve on mobile but I needed to switch to laptop halfway through to keep my sums straight after the breakin. I highly recommend using a larger screen here!
After breaking in, this puzzle doesn't really let up until perhaps the last few 3x3s. There are a LOT of constraints to keep up with, but this puzzle is so well designed, it really is quite intuitive to keep everything straight. Certainly a 5* outing but well worth the time. Thank you!!
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Thank you so much askaksaksask, I’m so glad you enjoyed it! There are indeed a lot of clues around the grid, but certain blue ones should draw the eye for the break in. There is, however, something true about the loop that can be derived before even getting started, and I think the puzzle will be quite a bit harder than intended without this fact. I’m very impressed with your solve time by the way, that’s very fast for this puzzle! Well done!!
on 28. December 2024, 04:35 by Chefofdeath
Such a wonderful gift! Thank you again for making this marvelous puzzle for me and I’m happy see it posted here for other puzzlers to enjoy!
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You’re very welcome Chefofdeath! It was a huge joy to set this puzzle for you and I’m so happy that you liked it!
