A Partridge In A Pear Tree
(Published on 27. November 2025, 16:41 by gdc)
This was made as part of a series on the 12 days of Christmas tune. According to testers (thanks everyone) it should be around 2 stars for difficulty. Hope you enjoy!
Tree: Draw a branching tree starting in the root (🌱). The tree only grows directly up and/or diagonally up (⬆️, ↗️, and/or ↖️). Whenever a cell grows into another cell, their digits differ by 3 or more.
Pears: Pears (🍐) are on the tree. Digits in pears and in the root (🌱) count the number of tree cells in the (5 or 8) surrounding cells, not including themselves.
Partridge: The partridge (🦃) is not on the tree and its digit counts the number of non-tree cells in its 8 surrounding cells, not including itself.
Solution code: The bottom row (row 6) left to right (6 digits)
Comments
on 19. January 2026, 20:33 by gdc
Thanks @pseudomonas! Uniqueness deductions are not intended or necessary, but I agree that it would make the puzzle a lot easier.
on 19. January 2026, 14:59 by pseudomonas
Love the ruleset! A lot of fun.
There were two points where the assumption that there was one unique tree layout (as opposed to one unique number-grid with ambiguous tree layout) would have led to a much faster solve. Not sure if that was the intended path or not.
Also I spent an embarrassing 30 seconds trying to wipe a pear stem off my monitor.
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ETA: reply to @gdc I took for granted that this wasn't the intended path (given that you hadn't specified in the rules "there is precisely one possible tree" and so deliberately didn't take it.)
on 2. January 2026, 14:16 by gdc
disable antiking (new SudokuPad bug)
on 3. December 2025, 00:00 by Voidslime
Extremely creative and fun!
on 1. December 2025, 09:11 by Jewel
Interesting ruleset that flows surprisingly well once you get it!
on 28. November 2025, 21:37 by puzzlelad
Very fun and topical! Well made GDC
on 28. November 2025, 18:21 by Sinuit
Loved that! Thanks a lot for creating!
on 27. November 2025, 23:10 by galium_odoratum
This was mind bending. It took a while to wrap my head around all the implications of this ruleset, but then it flowed very nicely.
on 27. November 2025, 18:09 by Wuschel
Very nice, thanks!
