Thursday, 4 August 2022

Freddie Hand

First of all, congratulations to @Karen Carpenter for correctly guessing Doppelblock as today's genre! It's always tricky when the genre has never appeared before in GAPP, so here is a well-earned otter: 🦦 And to everyone else, better luck next time... you may need it!

In an alternative universe, this is the genre that catapulted the Vimeo channel Solving The Sudoku to fame. And as we speak, the STS slack server is about to post a sandwich sudoku from genuinely-arduous-sudoku for the first time...

Rules: Place a number from 1 to N-2 into some cells so that each row and column contains every number from that range with no repeats, where N is the side length of the grid, and shade the remaining two cells of each row and column. (So 1-3 for the example puzzle, 1-5 for the main puzzle). A clue outside the grid indicates the sum of the digits which appear between the two shaded cells in the corresponding row or column.

Tip: If you're having trouble getting started, remember to consider the cells not between the two shaded cells!, and that the digits from 1 to 5 sum to 15 (exclamation mark)

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/26ote7lp

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 5:00 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 11:00 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Duplicated Dunnock 🐦

Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/28htlsda

NB: this genre is implemented on puzz.link, but number placement is more comfortable on Penpa+.