Sudoku Variants Series (271) - German Whispers
(Published on 3. June 2020, 00:00 by Richard)
German Whispers
Inspiration for this type comes from Christoph Seeliger (Realshaggy) at WSC 2019.
Solve online in F-Puzzles or in CtC-App (thanks Nick Smirnov!)
Apply classic sudoku rules.
Adjacent digits along the marked grey lines have a difference of at least five.
Solution code: Row 6, followed by column 7.
Comments
on 4. December 2023, 20:08 by PinkNickels
really fun!
on 4. November 2021, 05:14 by Richard
Added links for online solving. Thx Nick!
on 4. November 2021, 05:00 by Nick Smirnov
f-puzzles:
https://f-puzzles.com/?id=yhl46uq2
CTC App:
https://tinyurl.com/fmsuej4k
on 5. June 2020, 16:26 by Richard
Changed label. Thanks for notifying.
on 4. June 2020, 01:28 by Joo M.Y
Tag should be fixed. (Snake to Sudoku)
on 3. June 2020, 20:13 by Mody
Great :)
on 3. June 2020, 18:21 by Senior
@Richard:
Thank you for this interesting insight into your work and still lots of good ideas in all your ways!
on 3. June 2020, 16:31 by Richard
@Senior: that depends on some factors.
The first stage is thinking about the type and the intrinsic logic involved, followed by thinking about a possible entry in the puzzle. Mostly I do that either when I am driving to/back from work or during my lunch break walk in the park. It can be a process of days.
Second is the real designing, working out the ideas. That stage mostly takes from one to three hours I guess (I don't use a timer though).
The last stage is testing and fine-tuning. That can be anything from 15 minutes untill a couple of hours too. Sometimes the puzzle doesn't develop in the direction I want, so I have to start again. Fortunately that doesn't happen too often.
So all in all: a time consuming process, but with wide differentiation in time spent.
If I have to make a rough estimation for the average of SVS-puzzles: 2,5 hours. (After stage 1.)
on 3. June 2020, 16:05 by CHalb
And "Chinese whispers" in German is "stille Post". I didn't know that before reading the WSC instruction booklet.
on 3. June 2020, 13:50 by Circleconstant314
I like how the lines spell out SVS 271! :D Very charming!
on 3. June 2020, 12:56 by Senior
Thanks for this masterpiece, Richard!
What I always wanted to ask: What time do you need to create something so beautiful?
on 3. June 2020, 12:40 by Realshaggy
That's only half the truth. I had that grey line with the shape of germany already and wanted to use it in a puzzle. So I was looking for a type that works well with long lines that wasn't already on our list. I looked through some blogs and stumbeled across an old puzzle by Tom Collyer called "Chinese Whispers", where neighboring digits differ by at most 2. I changed the rules slightly and also the name. At that point, I had no idea what "Chinese Whispers" really means but that title makes a bit of sense. The changed title is by no means a criticism on german communication abilities :-)
on 3. June 2020, 12:06 by Richard
In the category 'nice to know': Some players asked at WSC2019 where the name German Whispers comes from. The answer is simple: in the competition puzzle, Christoph has used the outline of the German border for drawing the grey line.
on 3. June 2020, 11:47 by Statistica
Tolle Konstruktion. Schön wie immer :-)
on 3. June 2020, 10:11 by Richard
@Jonas: thanks! I liked the design as well, but it's a pity to give up on symmetry with the givens. Unfortunately I didn't manage to make one with a nice difficulty + symmetric givens.
on 3. June 2020, 09:57 by JonaS2010
Nice design :)
