Chaos Construction: Numbered Rooms / Skyscraper / Sandwich Length
(Published on 4. May 2022, 07:54 by KNT)
A clue outside the grid can mean one of three things, as written below.
1. A clue outside the grid indicates the number which has to be placed in the Nth cell in the corresponding direction, where N is the number placed closest to the clue. Both the indexing number and the indexed number are in the same region.
2. Treat each number N as a building of height N. A clue outside the grid indicates the number of buildings seen from from that direction, where taller buildings hide shorter buildings. Each seen building is in a different region.
3. A clue outside the grid indicates the number of cells between the 1 and the 9 in that row or column. The numbers between the 1 and the 9 in that row or column are all in the same region, and that region does not include either the 1 or the 9 in the respective row or column.
Solution code: Type the digits (no spaces) of the region containing R8C4 as follows: Row 1's digit in the region (left to right), Row 2's digits in the region (left to right), etc. 9 digits total.
Comments
on 1. April 2024, 04:30 by tallcat
Tackling this almost two years after publishing - as part of a tour of older CC puzzles. Immensely enjoyable!
on 11. February 2024, 13:51 by The Book Wyrm
Very fun and interesting puzzle.
Complex ruleset, which required thinking about all the different clue types.
Impressive that you can set a puzzle like this at all, especially with only 1 given.
Not too hard either, once you get started.
on 29. April 2023, 13:35 by StephenR
Another beauty, thanks. KNT's puzzles tend to fry my brain, though they're worth frying one's brains for. I thought I'd broken this at least 3 times when I hadn't.
on 19. August 2022, 12:27 by Piatato
Loads of fun! Thanks!
on 22. May 2022, 17:32 by Christounet
Another piece of art with a ruleset that might seem too intricate at first, but once you get used to check-eliminate the wrong options, it makes for a great ride of deductions ! Many thanks again !
on 13. May 2022, 22:55 by Agent
Great puzzle! Lots of beautiful deductions throughout.
on 11. May 2022, 01:32 by Elliptical
Excellent Puzzle. Beautiful Logic. Some steps were really hard, but still fair in my opinion.
on 6. May 2022, 17:40 by Niverio
Very nice inspiration after Thonk, definitely both puzzles are fantastic!
on 6. May 2022, 15:12 by MagnusJosefsson
Fantastic! Fun puzzle with consistent difficulty and a nice mix of different logic.
on 6. May 2022, 10:38 by twobear
Great construction. Thank you!
on 6. May 2022, 05:01 by cmb
Beautiful all the way.
on 5. May 2022, 19:15 by Elliptical
Excellent Puzzle. Beautiful Logic. Some steps were really hard, but still fair in my opinion.
on 5. May 2022, 18:17 by Jesper
Wonderful, thanks!
on 5. May 2022, 00:11 by marcmees
fantastic puzzle. thanks
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Thanks, Marc. Means a lot coming from you because from what I can tell you're a much harsher critic than most :-)
I am not sure if that's true but I certainly get less attracted by puzzles with the same variations on the same themes. Your puzzles (as well as those of some other of my favorite setters) do enter a class apart. I'll keep an eye on your posts.
on 4. May 2022, 16:16 by Siebuhh
Nice puzzle! Unfortunately it was unclear to me how to read the rules: I thought "one clue type from (rooms, skyscrapers, sandwich), and then given a clue the corresponding region constraint holds". After a contradiction I realised that the region contraints were included in the "one of the three holds"
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Thank you, Siebuhh! I'm sorry the rules seemed confusing to you, but even after rereading them, I think the precision of wording conveys what I intended.
on 4. May 2022, 13:44 by kolot
Very nice puzzle! There are some beautiful deductions in the solution path.
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Thank you, kolot! I had a lot of fun figuring out different things with this ruleset. I honestly think I could make 10+ more puzzles with it, each that use different ideas.
on 4. May 2022, 07:49 by KNT
I got the idea for this puzzle about 2 weeks ago when I saw "Thonk" by purpl posted in the CTC server. I thought the ruleset was interesting, and got the idea to turn it into a chaos construction (I have not actually solved "Thonk", I just saw the ruleset and got inspired. Sorry, purpl).
I immediately found it almost impossible to force any sort of break-in without loads of givens, and about a week ago I made a puzzle with this ruleset with 7 givens. I was determined to get it down to 4 givens, and after a few more days I reached that goal. After talking to a few people about the ruleset, I got new insight that eventually birthed the 1-given holy grail of a puzzle you see here.
While you might not find this the most difficult, or the most fun of all my puzzles, I am very proud of this one because from a setting point of view this was extremely hard for me to execute.
Anyway, if anyone solves this and is interested, I have 2 other puzzles (one with 6 givens, one with 3 givens) that use a similar break-in idea, but have wildly different back-two-thirds of the solve. I am happy to send them if you send me a message- I am in the CTC discord server. Albeit while I don't think either is worth posting here when this puzzle exists, they do have some interesting ideas I was unable to explore with this one.
