Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Last month, I tried to broaden my setting horizons by signing up for an event in which the challenge was to imitate another setter’s style (assigned randomly). To my terror, I drew the incomparable sfushidahardy.

On the one hand, I think I’ve solved almost every puzzle sfushidahardy has ever made. So, unlike some other participants, I barely had to research my subject. On the other hand, sfushidahardy puzzles are simply incredible. Like really, really awesome. His (often minimal) clue placement is meticulous, his ability to find interesting ruleset interactions is second-to-none, and solve paths are always crafted for maximum enjoyment. Impersonating him was a very tall task.

I spent most of the allotted setting time feeling inadequate and simply trying to land on a worthy ruleset, but none of my ideas were landing. Feeling the pressure and running out of time, I swung for the fences and decided to set my first U-Bahn, adding the pentopia ruleset that was so beautifully executed in his puzzles Arcade and Iterations.

Although I’m happy with the final result, I’m under no illusion that I captured the full depth of sfushidahardy's style. But I learned a lot trying and had a blast along the way. I hope you’ll enjoy solving this puzzle half as much as I enjoyed setting it!

• U-Bahn: Draw a connected loop network through the centers of some unshaded cells, which may branch or turn, but may not have any dead ends. A clue outside the grid indicates how many times the corresponding line shape (i.e. a cross, branch, straight line, or turn) appears in the corresponding row or column, irrespective of the line shape's rotation.


• Pentopia: Place some pentominoes in the grid such that no pentominoes touch, even diagonally. A pentomino may not repeat in the grid (rotations and reflections are considered the same shape). Arrow clues indicate all the directions (up, down, left, and right) where the nearest pentominoes are located when looking from that cell. (To clarify, if a clue has multiple arrowheads, the distance to the closest pentomino cell must be the same in each direction, and pentominoes cannot overlap arrow clues.)


• Interaction: The U-Bahn network may not visit any pentomino cells or clue cells. All empty U-Bahn cells are part of pentominoes or clue cells.