Thermomether
(Published on 3. February 2026, 15:31 by Kjupatrick)
There are warm-blooded things, and cold-blooded things.
And then there is this undefinable, faceless, invincible abomination whose countless writhing tendrils slip into the labyrinthine coils of the mind silently devouring every trace of logic, every possible path, until nothing remains but vertigo and wordless despair.
Thermomether by Patrick Junke
Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply:
Place each digit from 1 to 9 in every row, column, and marked 3×3 region.
Slow thermometers:
Along the green lines, digits cannot increase in the direction of the thermometer bulbs (the circles).
Killer cages:
Digits inside a dotted region sum to the small indicated number.
App link :
Here is a link to a SudokuPad version of the grid.
Notes:
How to read merged thermometers:
All merged thermometers have been presented so that there could not be left ambiguities relative to their directions.
Here are some examples in green to get familiar with the branch principles.
Examples of ambiguous merged thermometers are shown in red for illustration purposes, but there are none of these in this puzzle.
How to approach the puzzle:
You will soon realize that filling all the thermometers, all the grid with notes will not give you immediate rewards.
There are a lot of thermometers but there are slow ones and never very long. So all is quite loose at first.
You have to tighten your notes bit by bit by using thermometers interactions of course : between them or between them and the small killer cages, but also quite soon by using pure Sudoku solving techniques (noticing unicities, n-uples, etc.).
Solution code: The digits of the last row from left to right:
Comments
on 10. February 2026, 10:01 by Kjupatrick
Congratulations Da Letter El
on 9. February 2026, 17:40 by Kjupatrick
War also crossed the finish line... bravo and thank you!
on 9. February 2026, 07:48 by Kjupatrick
A new solve, thanks dogfarts!
on 7. February 2026, 21:31 by Kjupatrick
Yeah! Thank you luisdcnt!
on 7. February 2026, 15:06 by Kjupatrick
Solve counter:10 on SudokuPad, but out of radars now for logic master solvers...
on 6. February 2026, 16:48 by Kjupatrick
Solve counter:8 on SudokuPad
on 6. February 2026, 12:05 by Kjupatrick
Adding the note about how to approach the puzzle.
on 6. February 2026, 10:54 by Kjupatrick
Adding the note about how to read the merged thermometers.
on 6. February 2026, 07:38 by deltameth
I dare to suppose that the low amount of solves might be due to an unclear rule set. E.g., how to interpret R2C5-R1C6-R2C7-R2C8-R1C9 ? This is a bit with the bulbs at each end. I guess you meant 2 thermometers there. But which part belong to the first one and which to the second one? And this happens all over the place.
I didn’t even try for this reason, hoping that somebody asks about clarifications first…
Patrick> ok, I will make a note about it. It’s my first creation of a puzzle with thermometers and used them with a very specific idea in mind for the final deductions. I played a lot with them with the editing tool and am accustomed to these figures now, but I understand your confusion. I mention the editing tool on purpose because :
I can assure you that the editing tool is very strict and would not allow the drawing of a thermometer, or merged termometers, if there where any ambiguity on it. The example you mentionned wouldn’t indeed be allowed... if there wasn’t the r2c7 to r1c7 branch, wich tells us where the two thermometers meet and continue to grow.
Other exemple: we know r7c4, r7c6, and r9c3 grow to r9c4 thanks to the r9c4 to r8c3 branch that show us their exit, and we know they all grow - with the r7c1 and r7c2 thermometers they just join - to r7c4, the final desambiguing branch for them.
on 5. February 2026, 00:57 by Kjupatrick
Estimated difficulty level changed from 4* to 5*.
on 3. February 2026, 23:44 by Kjupatrick
Solve counter 6 on SudokuPad at this point (9 hours after releasing).
Just one here and it could just have been cracked.
Solution code checked again, it’s ok.
We will see...
