Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

It has recently been brought to my attention that today marks the 2-year anniversary of the "Lockout Line" rule. To celebrate this, I decided to seize the opportunity to set an 11x11 deconstruction with it, continuing a serie I started a while ago (also including puzzles involving kropki dots, german whispers, position sums, thermos, counting cells in and out of regions).

As I wanted to keep the design free of any given digit or any other visual clue, which should be impossible (because of the nature of Lockout Lines which require a disambiguation at some point), I added an extra rule that does the trick and allows some new layer of logic to appear, without taking away too much from the lockout logic.

If you have never played Lockout Lines, may I suggest that you try some of the puzzles by its inventors to get the main ideas of the concept first : Riffclown, tallcat.

The puzzle :

Play on Sudokupad (answer check)

Rules :

- Normal sudoku deconstruction apply : Fill the grid with nine non-overlapping 3x3 square regions, such that each region contains the digits 1-9 once each and no digit repeats in any row or column. Cells outside regions do not contain digits.

- Note : All the lines are lockout lines and work the same. Different colors are used to differenciate the lines that cross. The lines do not branch.

- Lockout Lines : on a valid lockout line, the 2 diamonds must differ by at least 4, and the digits on the line must not be equal to or between the end values.

- Modified Lockout Lines : if only one of the diamonds is in a region, the digits on the line must be all below or all above the value of the diamond . Example : (5)-123 and (7)-89 are valid, (5)-127 is not.

- If the 2 diamonds are out of regions, the digits on the line are not constrained

- Friendly cells in box : In every box, each cell is assigned an index from 1 to 9, numbered from left to right, top to bottom. In every box N, the digit N must be in the cell indexed N. (In a regular sudoku, 1 would be in R1C1, 2 in R1C5, 4 in R5C1...) See the example below for clarity.

Exemple for the friendly cells rule :

Enjoy ! And consider leaving a comment if you appreciate the puzzle !

You can check out my other puzzles here if you liked this one.