Rank Up 05 - Deconstruction
(Published on 10. July 2024, 23:00 by ThePedallingPianist)
Deconstruction: Within the main grid (inside the thick border), place four non-overlapping 2x2 boxes and fill every cell in these boxes with a digit from 1-4 such that digits do not repeat in a row, column or box. The black cell is not part of a box.
Modified Full Rank: A value in an external cell represents the rank of the number formed by reading the digits in that row or column from that direction, where (1) is the lowest such row or column and (20) is the highest. Empty cells do not contain digits. For example, if a row has 3 empty cells, then the external clues for that row are ranking a 2-digit number. "X" is a constant.
N.B. If two ranks are tied, the value in both external cells is the lower of the two ranks being shared. For example, if the lowest four ranks are "1243", "1324", "1324" and "1432", the values in the relevant external cells would be (1), (2), (2) and (4) respectively.
Solution code: Column 1 (far left) of the internal grid, top to bottom, using "E" to represent an empty cell
Comments
on 9. January 2026, 01:39 by SennyK
Just brilliant! Loved it!
on 1. October 2025, 00:08 by ThePedallingPianist
Updated series link
on 13. February 2025, 18:40 by bhambells
You sit there thinking "This is impossible. I've got nothing!". Then things start to dawn on you...
on 17. October 2024, 04:22 by Elker
That was lots of fun. Thanks for setting.
on 5. September 2024, 19:13 by The Book Wyrm
Wow, this is a crazy puzzle. Incredible how this is solvable with so few clues. Very interesting logic as well. Nice.
on 20. August 2024, 21:29 by blackjackfitz
It doesn't seem like this should solve but it does, beautifully
on 13. August 2024, 01:31 by ajc
Took me about an hour! I agree with Franjo, I had to go through several bits of scruffy logic first time around, but could reconstruct my solution in a very straightforward manner upon solving again. Lovely puzzle! This whole series is so unique and wonderful.
on 12. July 2024, 18:36 by Franjo
This one drove me crazy for a while. But looking back at the solution path it can be done straight forward. Seems my old brain has lost some of its former flexibility… Thank you very much for sharing.
