Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

This puzzle was created for Turn 2 of the Skunkworks League, hosted by damasosos92. The challenge was to make a puzzle bringing to life the story of The Boy, a song by Tom Rosenthal.

This puzzle represents the final two minutes of the song, starting at 4:24 in the video. For this competition, I was the last-numbered person (#51), so I felt that I had to make a puzzle that was a satisfying finale for the judges. Here's what I landed on!

Rules:

Terminology: "Water" refers only to the blue cells. "Water's edge" refers only to the non-water cells orthogonally adjacent to the water. "Land" is all non-water cells.
Sudoku: Normal sudoku rules apply.
Paths: There are three separate paths in the grid, all traveling orthogonally. Paths cannot branch or intersect, except where the boy's path ends and the rose's path begins.
Creature: The creature's path begins in R2C2. Digits along this path increase until the creature reaches the water's edge, where it attains its highest value. The creature then enters the water, never to return to land, and digits along its path decrease by one until the path cell contains the number 1, at which point the creature's path ends. At least one cell in each box along the creature's path is "friendly"; such a cell's digit matches the cell's row, column, or box number. The creature only needs one "friendly" cell in each box it enters, regardless if it exits and re-enters the box.
Boy: The boy's path begins in R3C2. All of the boy's path cells are orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to a path cell of the creature. The boy's path ends at the water's edge. Within each box, digits along the boy's path increase in the direction the boy travels. Digits do not necessarily increase when the boy crosses a box border.
Rose: The rose's path begins where the boy's path ends. All four cells with yellow petals or roses are on the path, and the path ends in R9C1. Box borders divide this path into separate entropic lines; every set of three or fewer sequential digits contains at most one low (123), one medium (456), and one high (789) digit. Entropy classes MAY repeat across box borders. The rose's path is meandering, including as many cells on its path as it can without breaking other rules. (This rule is for uniqueness of the rose's path, and you should not need this rule to place digits.)

You can play the puzzle by clicking on the image!

I saw these constraints as each relating to the characters in some way, as their journey comes to a close. The boy's path has digits increasing, showing the boy aging and slowly lessening his dependence on the creature. The friendly creature grows alongside the boy, before descending slowly into the waves. And the rose, floating chaotically above it all, shows just the slightest glimpses of a pattern before descending once again into chaos. Of course, this is all interpretation, and it changes in the eye of each beholder. Feel free to draw your own conclusions from the meaning behind each of the constraints!

Happy solving! Making the graphics for this puzzle was a great exercise, and I really enjoyed it. Please leave a comment if you liked this puzzle, and check out some of my others!