Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Phew, it's been a while since my last time attempting at setting a proper puzzle... To be fair, I can't really keep track of like 200 things that have been happening and most of the time I just don't have an energetic spirit to think of puzzling much and setting anything great (well I set a couple of mini 6x6s for fun but that's just it), let's just say that prioritizing my mentality is sometimes more important than like 99% other things in my life. But anyway, I'm back for some more fun now.



The following puzzle is the 2nd entry of my mini-series Limitless Potential, where I explore some interesting ideas that have great potentials for making cool and beautiful puzzles. For this one, I looked at pathfinder type of puzzle and kind of stepped away my comfort zone for a while. I know that I haven't solved such type that much but at least I've gained some basic knowledge from watching some people's attempt at doing them. This one also features the idea of changing the rules as the path gets to certain points, for the sake of my first learning experience I'll just do it simple.

The solve path may be quite tricky at certain points but I think nothing should really feel unfair here. I hope you enjoy!

Setter's note: It's important to ask the right questions related to which cells are on the path and which cells are not.

Rules:

- Normal Sudoku rules apply: every row, column and 3x3 box contains digits from 1 to 9 each once.

- Draw a one cell wide orthogonally connected path that goes from the green circle - which must contain an odd digit - to an unknown endpoint in box 9 that needs to be deduced, this endpoint must contain an even digit.

- The path mustn't branch (or intersect itself) and it has to go through the checkpoint marked as a yellow star. For the sake of this puzzle, the path can touch itself (either orthogonally or diagonally) and will be divided into 2 phases (and each phase will include both mentioned endpoints):

+ From the green circle to the checkpoint: along this path, adjacent digits must have difference of at least 5.
+ From the checkpoint to the required endpoint in box 9: this path must be able to be divided into contiguous groups/segments of cells such that each group/segment has a total of 15.

- For each killer cage, digits can't repeat within and its small number in the corner shows the total of all cells that are NOT on the overall path.

Puzzle:

F-puzzle - Penpa plus (alt. link) - Sudokupad (alt. link)

Good luck and have fun solving!