No Sudoku in My Sudoku(?) Puzzle.
(Published on 21. January 2026, 05:22 by Justalilguy)
Play online in Sudokupad.
Rules
- Use digits 1-9 to fill the grid entirely..
- Palindrome line: Digits along the grey line read the same from both directions.
- Dutch Whisper: Adjacent digits are at least 4 apart from each other on the orange lines.
- Parity line: Adjacent digits are of different parity on the red parity lines.
- Renban: A non-repeating set of consecutive digits are present on the pink renban lines. They can be in any order.
- X Sums: Clues outside are the sum of the first N digits from the direction of the clue, where N is the first digit from the direction of the clue.
- Thermometers: Digits strictly increase from the bulb to the tip on thermometers.
- Killer cages: Digits in the cage can repeat and sum to the small number in the corner.
- Arrow: Digits on the arrow sum to the digit in th bulb. Digits can repeat on an arrow.
- Box 1 and 9 are clones of each other.
- Sudoku is not allowed.(No restrictions about repetitions)
Solution code: Row 6
Comments
on 22. January 2026, 21:42 by jordanza
Last rule might be better with "Sudoku rules may or may not necessary" instead of "Sudoku is not allowed" for more better comprehension for the solver.
on 22. January 2026, 17:38 by JVA
No way anyone would rate this 1* if they followed the "No sudoku rule"
on 22. January 2026, 05:29 by PixelPenguin
Fun puzzle. Felt harder that 1*. I think people are just ignoring the rule about duplicate digits being allowed.
on 22. January 2026, 01:30 by Pairot
This was a marathon 50 minute solve for me. Not sure I'd call it 1* but it was really fun
on 21. January 2026, 21:31 by Justalilguy
Rule clarification
on 21. January 2026, 19:16 by flutchman
Incredibly funny.
on 21. January 2026, 13:47 by Mozart40
Much more clues than needed, even for a 1* puzzle. The only real challenge was recognizing the notes, especially on the thick lines.
I can't remember everything but I didn't used the dutch whisper loop between box 4 and 7 and the arrow in boxes 3 and 6.
__________
I'm curious to know which clues you thought were not needed. Since you're not allowed to do sudoku, every cell needs to be under some constraint.
It seems you might have made mistaken deductions. Keep in mind sudoku rules don't apply. The arrow and the Dutch whisper rules are on some cells that do not have any other constraints, namely r2c7 and r6c2. Without those clues those cells can be any digit from 1-9
on 21. January 2026, 13:45 by VitP
if sudoku cannot be used, then this puzzle cannot be solved.
for example, for the 45 x-sums, N=9 is "obvious", right ?
NO, it isn't. 699993xxx is valid.
for example, in box 6, the "odd" cell is 2, right?
NO, it isn't. ANY of {1234} are valid.
ha ha, jk, renbans and cages save you.
that's 8 in the middle (chocolate teapot hint)
p.s level 2 is an accurate difficulty rating
on 21. January 2026, 12:48 by superkinkel
Nice, especially for someone like me who always struggles with Sudoku. But certainly only one star even if you never use Sudoku.
on 21. January 2026, 06:27 by fjvm
Although I found it very amusing, it was a difficult task for my eyes to properly see the numbers with all the different lines
