Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Yes, I know this isn't the 9x9 chaos construction I promised in the preamble of my last LMD upload. The more I get stuck setting that, the more respect I have for anyone who has made chaos constructions. It's not been easy at all, but I'm determined that it's worth persisting!

In the meantime, here's my response to Scojo's setting prompt of "modular lines" last week. I may have taken artistic license a bit far with this ruleset... The title is a reference to a recent puzzle of mine, which was also based a little too loosely on a Scojo prompt!

As the rules state, this puzzle has two solutions. I know this won't sit very well with some sudoku purists, but in the world of chess problems, puzzles with multiple solutions are often actually encouraged if they're sufficiently different and in an interesting enough way, which I believe applies here. I had a few ideas of how to link the two solutions and necessitate solving one to solve the other, but that just resulted in an even more convoluted ruleset and some fiendishly difficult steps, so simply posting twin puzzles seemed preferable.

For reasons of accessibility and rewarding having a go, I wanted to make the solution code relate to the easier version of this puzzle. My estimated difficulty for the two puzzles is 2.5/5 and 4/5 respectively, so as the solution code is based on the former I thought I'd err towards that. Please let me know in the comments if you do attempt both!

Enormous thanks to Nell Gwyn and my dad for testing various ludicrously fiendish versions of this and helping me to realise that extra complexity doesn't always equal extra fun!


Mad Mean Mini: For each of the two 4x4 sudoku grids, select FIVE different digits from the set 0-9, and place them into every row, column and box without repeats. There are no digits in common between the two grids.

Unique S-cells: Each grid has four S-cells, which simultaneously contain two digits. The value of an S-cell is the sum of its digits, and no two of the eight total S-cells have the same value.

Mad Mods: Values on a length-N line (N cells visited) must be DIFFERENT and must have the SAME remainder when divided by N. Different colours are used to distinguish between overlapping lines.

Disjoint Grids: Two cells in the same position in each grid may not have the same value.

The given 5 is not an S-cell.

Choose your difficulty! For an easier experience, put an ODD value in the diamond. For a harder experience, put an EVEN value in the diamond.