Made in the Shade (Heyawake CC) (w/ SennyK)
(Published on 3. February 2026, 17:49 by mellowrobinson)
SennyK and I have teamed up to create another Heyawake Chaos Construction. We tried to make all the steps on the more approachable side, but of course this combination of rules can be a lot to keep track of, so we expect a difficulty around 4-5 stars. Regardless, we are quite happy with how this one turned out, and we hope you enjoy it!
- Chaos Construction: Divide the grid into nine orthogonally connected nine-cell regions, draw their borders, and place the digits 1 to 9 once in each row, column, and region.
- White region dots*: Values in cells joined by a white dot are consecutive and belong to the same region.
- Black region dots*: Values in cells joined by a black dot are in a 1:2 ratio (i.e., one value will be double the other) and belong to different regions.
- *Corner region dots: Dots on cell's corners join two diagonally adjacent cells pointed to by the arrows.
- Heyawake: Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent and the remaining unshaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. There cannot be a horizontal or vertical line of unshaded cells that goes through 2 or more region borders.
- Squares: Values in squares indicate the number of unshaded cells in all (up to 9) surrounding cells.
- Values: A shaded cell containing digit x has value 2x; an unshaded cell containing digit x has value x. In other words, shaded cells are doublers.
You can see on the example above how Standard Heyawake works. You can also try to play an example here or a big 9x9 heyawake here before you solve the puzzle. Rules are also explained here.
- Some related puzzles:
- Megha-Tropiques by Xenonetix
- Hey, Are You Awake? by mathpesto
- Heyawake Sudoku by SennyK
- Heyawake Chaos by mellowrobinson
- Heyarrows by phil_the
- Heyawake Sudoku (Given Regions) by SennyK
Solution code: 2nd row of the grid from left to right, with shaded cells in parenthesis "()", and a forward slash "/" marking borders between regions. e.g. 1(2)/3/4(5)6/7/(8)9
Comments
on 12. February 2026, 17:59 by War
Excellent fun break-in and middle. The ending was probably the trickiest part, trying to track regions vs heyawake
on 12. February 2026, 01:44 by Chilly
Super fun and hard without being crazy hard. Enjoyed it a lot.
on 7. February 2026, 23:15 by Christounet
Just awesome! Not easy to find the correct notation for me, with several layers of coloring. But it was all worth it. Loved the way the regions were built here. Thanks :)
on 4. February 2026, 03:48 by raaaaa
Great puzzle!
on 3. February 2026, 17:53 by SennyK
Thank you for this lovely collab, I really enjoyed setting this together! :-)
