Freezing Outside
(Published on 13. September 2025, 08:00 by Kaktuslav)
Deconstruction: Place nine non-overlapping 3×3 boxes in the grid and fill them with digits 1–9 so that no digit repeats in any row, column, or box.
Values: Cells outside the boxes take the value –1 (negative one), while cells inside take the value of their digit.
Cages: Values in a cage sum to the number in its top-left corner (values may repeat within a cage).
German whispers: Along a green line, neighboring values differ by at least 5.
Arrows: Values on an arrow sum to the value in the attached circle.
XV: A “V” between two cells means their values sum to 5.
Solution code: All positive values in the central column (top to bottom, no spaces)
Comments
on 11. February 2026, 23:44 by mcs131313
Extremely cool end. For anyone really struggling, no tedious trial and error needed (although I did that for a while before finding the implicit extra regions)
on 16. January 2026, 18:43 by kasperd
Cages summing to zero is an interesting touch. I liked it.
on 7. November 2025, 00:02 by eap314
I love the variation on the standard 0-value deconstruction. A bit hard to remember at the beginning, but very nice when you wrap your head around it.
on 24. September 2025, 19:12 by Nemefish
This was a delightful. The slight twist to the rules seems like the way for a mischievous setter to tell little inside jokes with his solvers. Wouldn't a triangular Whispers line be funny? It's not the only one in the puzzle.
The deconstruction was fairly smooth. At the finish I needed to search a bit for hidden extra regions, but it was worth the extra effort in the end.
on 14. September 2025, 11:01 by Snookerfan
Excellent! Lovely variation, smooth puzzle. Thank you
on 13. September 2025, 13:38 by mihel111
approachable and fun deconstruction puzzle. Very well done.
