Roller Coaster Yin Yang Cipher
(Published on 26. December 2022, 11:26 by Piatato)
I set this puzzle as a gift for Agent, as part of the Secret Santa event on the CTC Community Discord server. Agent graciously allowed me to publish it here on LMD. Researching Agent's solving preferences I quickly realized that this was a great opportunity for me to take the time out to go and set something much more elaborate than I usually do. Inspired heavily by some of KNT's Japanese Sum Cave Cipher puzzles, a few of Uhu's Roller Coasters and several excellent Yin Yang hybrids by Jesper and Agent himself, I went ahead and set this puzzle.
Happy Holidays!
Rules:
Fill in every digit from 1 to 9 in each row and column.
Shade some cells in the grid in such a way that all the shaded cells form an orthogonally connected area, and all the unshaded cells form an orthogonally connected area. No area of 2x2 cells may contain only shaded or only unshaded cells.
Draw a loop through some of the cells. The loop moves orthogonally between the centers of cells. It may not cross or intersect itself.
The loop visits every unshaded cell.
Shaded cells that are visited by the loop must contain odd digits.
Every distinct letter represents a distinct digit from 0 to 9. A question mark represents any digit, but for a double digit number, the first digit cannot be 0.
A set of clues outside of a row/column shows either all the sums of the loop segments (from the cell in which the loop turns, to the next cell in which the loop turns) in that row/column, or all the sums of stretches of shaded cells in that row/column, or all the sums of stretches of unshaded cells in that row/column. The sums are always presented in the same order as the segments they refer to appear in the row/column.
Solve in Penpa+ here (For answer check to work, make sure there's no extra shading anywhere)
Solution code: Row 1 and column 3
Comments
on 12. February 2024, 00:51 by Christounet
Great puzzle ! Loved the ruleset and interactions in there. Thanks :)
on 29. March 2023, 22:03 by lerroyy
Really nice puzzle!
on 6. January 2023, 22:24 by Myxo
Stunning puzzle!
on 4. January 2023, 20:43 by Samish
Fabulous puzzle!!! There is no overly hard step but the difficulty is relentless and comes from the multiplicity of places where to look which makes it pretty hard overall. But whenever I found the path it was *absolutely* beautiful and well worth the hourS of solve :D Thank you!!
on 2. January 2023, 00:27 by MagnusJosefsson
Great puzzle! Very interesting and challenging!
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Thank you for the solve and comment :-)
on 28. December 2022, 14:34 by polar
Brilliant puzzle thanks :)
on 27. December 2022, 13:58 by Vebby
Brilliant puzzle! The rule combination created interesting and enjoyable logic throughout. Thanks Martin! :)
on 27. December 2022, 12:38 by Jesper
Great puzzle! I tested this about a week ago and it was a lot of fun! Good break-in followed by a challenging and interesting solution path with even difficulty level.
on 27. December 2022, 05:45 by KNT
Extremely hard puzzle, I am relieved to enter the solution code correctly. (especially since my answer check didn't work)
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Uh oh! Did you take away any extra shading, and if so, did you fill in the table correctly? The answer check should check for gray shading, green line and digits in the grid and in the table.
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Ah! it was extra shading. Regardless, my heart skipped a beat when I entered the last digit and nothing popped up. One of my more rewarding solves in a while, though
on 26. December 2022, 15:54 by ONeill
Superb puzzle, thanks!
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Thank you for the solve and the comment!
-Piatato
on 26. December 2022, 14:45 by filuta
This puzzle is so amazing I don't even mind the redundant clues.
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Thanks a lot for testing the slightly more finicky version with a couple less clues, haha!
on 26. December 2022, 14:34 by Agent
I thouroughly enjoyed this puzzle! Some really cool logic packed into this, the interactions between the rules are very interesting. It was quite hard, but with a balanced difficulty curve, there's always a way to make progress. Thanks a lot Piatato for this amazing gift!
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Thanks a lot for inspiring me to set this puzzle! I'm very happy to see that you enjoyed it. :-)
on 26. December 2022, 14:34 by Piatato
Changed the wording of the rules slightly.
on 26. December 2022, 13:00 by Wessel Strijkstra
Loved this puzzle, quite hard but a fairly clear solve path using a great combination of constraints. Well done:)
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Thanks! I was very happy to see you enjoy it! :-)
