4 Stones, 1 Bird (Lost and Found #8 - Finale)
(Published on 25. May 2025, 09:58 by .proxz14)
Your prowess has reached the ears of the current mayor, who is impressed with your skillset. She wishes for your help with the trickiest cold case of the century; the murder of her father, the ex-mayor. The detective agency place their trust in you; the only one with the skill to solve it. Good Luck Detective!
This is the grand finale of "Lost and Found", a puzzle series in which modifications to the killer variant are explored in the context of a detective training lore. You can find links for the rest of series below;
- #1: Rogues Gallery
- #2: Innocence is Illegal
- #3: Innocence is Legal
- #4: Onion Rings
- #5: Lost Village
- #6: Lost Town
- #7: Lost City
Rules (an example will be provided below)
Latin Square: In each grid, place the digits 0–9 once each in every row and column.Ambiguous Cages: There are 4 types of cages in this puzzle. Each grid has only one of those cage types exclusively. Digits can't repeat in any cage. The grid that contains killer cages belongs to the murderer.
- Killer Cages: Digits in a killer cage sum to the value given in the top left corner.
- Suspect Cages: The sum of the digits in a suspect cage must be 1 away from the value given in the top left corner.
- Framed Cages: The sum of the digits in a framed cage must be 2 away from the value given in the top left corner.
- Innocent Cages: The sum of the digits in an innocent cage must be at least 10 away from the value given in the top left corner. (Additionally, innocent cages must take the least amount of cells possible to be 10 or more away from their clued sums)
Chaos Deconstruction: Each grid contains 10 regions of 10 orthogonally connected cells that contain exactly one circled cell and the digits 0–9 once each. Region borders are the same across all grids, and some are given from the start.
Cage-Building: Cages aren't fully given, but instead their values are, which must always be at the top left corner of the cage (left-most cell of a cage in the highest row it reaches). All cells of a cage must be unshaded and in the same region on their grid. Cages can't overlap, but can be adjacent.
Tapa: On each grid, shade some cells such that all shaded cells form a single orthogonally connected wall. Circled cells indicate the length of the largest consecutive shaded block in the neighbouring 8 cells of the circled cell and are unshaded. Shaded cells cannot form a 2×2 square anywhere.
Cipher: Clues are ciphered where each letter represents a unique digit 0–9. Cipher is the same across all grids. A ? stands for any digit 0–9, but a double digit clue can't lead with a 0.
Solution code: Row 6 of each grid in the following order;
Killer - Suspicious - Framed - Innocent (40 digits)
Comments
on 10. August 2025, 03:29 by Frank Puzzles
Loved all the Lost and Found puzzles which I did.
Just a note, there seems to be some discrepancies between Sgt. Gray's individual grid and the main grid. There seems to be an extra border given which was not given in the original, and there seems to be a cage clue (R6C3) which is GK instead of K. I believe that GK as the clue makes the puzzle unsolvable so I went with what was on the main grid.
Other than those hiccups, It was pretty fun to finish out. The videos of my solve will come out in about a week or so. Let me know if you want me to post links to the solve!
Nice job!
.proxz14's response: Glad you enjoyed the series! Feel free to post the links here :)
on 22. June 2025, 15:04 by kingoffries
Incredible series! Your puzzles took over a month for me to get through them all, and this one was definitely the hardest thing I've ever tackled. Thanks for making this puzzle!
on 25. May 2025, 10:33 by ghaia
What a puzzle. It's really hard, and really nice too, although it took me like 8 hrs or so to complete haha. I have to say, the way chaos deconstruction and the cages interact is stunning. Sad to see lost and found end, it was a nice ride!
.proxz14's response: What a solve! I'm happy you got to enjoy L&F series all the way through, but it had to end at some point.
