Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Japanese Cave Fillomino (ft. Christounet)

(Published on 24. January 2026, 00:00 by cyddrdrd)

This puzzle is created by Christounet and rdrd. Our previous collab puzzles can be found here and here. In this puzzle, we combine cave and fillomino, and shaded cells serve as negators. Please be aware that the fillomino rules are modified: empty cells are allowed, and they serve as separators for Japanese sums. Estimated difficulty is around 4+ based on testers' feedback. Enjoy!

Rules

  1. Cave: Shade some cells so that all unshaded cells are orthogonally connected, and all shaded cells are orthogonally connected by other shaded cells to the edge of the grid. A circled cell cannot be shaded, and contains a number that's equal to the total number of unshaded cells that can be seen vertically and horizontally, including itself, where shaded cells block the vision.

  2. Fillomino: Place some orthogonally connected regions in the grid. Two regions of the same size may not share an edge. If a cell belongs to a region, it contains a number that's equal to the size of its region; otherwise it is empty (i.e. doesn't contain any number).

  3. Negation: A shaded cell's value is equal to the negative of its number. An unshaded cell's value is equal to its number.

  4. Japanese Sums: Clues outside the grid represent the sum of values in each contiguous sequence of non-empty cells, in the order of appearance from left to right or top to bottom. Consecutive sequences must be separated by at least one empty cell.
    A '?' represents any digit from 0 to 9. For a multi-digit number, its first digit cannot be 0. For clarification, '?' may be 0 while '-?' may not.

Thank you MonsieurTRISTE and NEWS for testing and suggestions!

Penpa+ (with solution check)
SudokuPad (no solution check)



Example puzzle:
We strongly recommend trying the example first to get familiar with the ruleset.

Penpa+ (example)
SudokuPad (example)


Solution code: Numbers in unshaded cells in row 3 then column 3, X for empty cells. For the example puzzle, it would be 5241010.

Last changed on on 30. January 2026, 15:56

Solved by MonsieurTRISTE, Christounet, NEWS, Jesper, Bellsita, wildbush7, Piatato
Full list

Comments

on 7. February 2026, 11:44 by Piatato
Excellent!

on 30. January 2026, 17:35 by wildbush7
Oustanding setting! I kept making one wrong assumption which turned this into a much longer journey than it needed to be. Thank you for the fabulous puzzle.

on 30. January 2026, 15:56 by cyddrdrd
Reformulated the rule. Thank you wildbush7!

on 24. January 2026, 07:39 by Christounet
I had a great time again setting this with you!

on 24. January 2026, 00:15 by MonsieurTRISTE
Brilliant puzzle. The regions and shadings grow smoothly. Lots of fun to solve!

Difficulty:4
Rating:N/A
Solved:7 times
Observed:0 times
ID:000R47

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