Heat Index
(Published on 25. January 2025, 18:31 by gdc)
- Normal sudoku rules apply.
- BYO Thermo: For each blue square, draw a line that starts in that square, only moves horizontally and/or vertically (never diagonally) and ends in a red square. Lines don't branch or overlap. Digits along lines increase moving away from the blue cell.
- Row Indexers: A digit N in a blue cell at rXcY puts the digit X into rNcY.
- Column Indexer: A digit N in a red cell at rXcY puts the digit Y into rXcN.
Example Puzzle
An example puzzle (left) and its solution (right). Every blue cell is connected to a red cell via a sequence of horizontal and/or vertical lines. The 3 in the top-left cell puts 1 into r3c1 via indexing. the 4 below (r2c1) puts a 1 into r2c4.
Solution code: Row 9 left to right (9 digits)
Comments
on 4. February 2025, 12:40 by jadezki
Loved it, thanks!
on 3. February 2025, 11:46 by TheNineElements
Solve Time: 22:58
I rated this 2/5 difficulty.
Neat puzzle! Really enjoyed the ruleset, which was a bit of a surprise for me! The solve path was nice and the puzzle had a very enjoyable break-in.
The puzzle overall felt like a fair 2/5 difficulty. As mentioned by @Gnubeutel, the rules seemed much more intimidating than they actually were.
The logic for the thermo drawing was straightforward enough, and it felt fairly 'obvious' where I was supposed to be looking to make progress. Having solved several puzzles that involve 'drawing'/'placing' the clues as you progress through the solve, this one has been the most approachable I've tried thus far from your catalogue.
The indexing was also straightforward, but involved a bit of thinking/tinkering before I really understood everything. I spent maybe 5 minutes at the beginning of the solve not really fully understanding the geometry of the indexing cells, but after making a few deductions and placing a digit, your given clue notation/design "clicked" and everything suddenly was much more clearly understandable/memorable. The clue design was excellent, and it made it very obvious what digit was being indexed, and in what direction. This is (or at least should be) the 'gold standard' for row/column-wise cell indexing notation.
Overall this was yet another great @gdc puzzle! Thanks for sharing!
on 30. January 2025, 23:32 by teuthida
I love the notation of indexing rows and columns. Normally I get easily confused by these clues, especially if both directions are present. Here I had no problems with remembering what is what, thank you!
on 30. January 2025, 20:20 by sehes
Easy, fun, brilliant thank you for creating this
on 30. January 2025, 00:07 by dzamie
This was a lot of fun, especially with the layered clues. Probably on the easier side of 2*, but not quite enough to be 1*
on 26. January 2025, 10:41 by LehanLehan
Very enjoyable,thanks,gdc
on 26. January 2025, 00:22 by therealsillypenguin
Building the thermos and uncovering their interactions was thoroughly enjoyable! Great puzzle
on 25. January 2025, 22:15 by wuc
Great underrated puzzle. Start very clever. Gets easier to the end. Great fun thx.
on 25. January 2025, 19:48 by Gnubeutel
Really nice puzzle. The rules seem more intimidating than they actually are.
