This puzzle was made as part of Scojo's annual impostor event. My goal was to set a puzzle that could only have been set by me. It went up against a puzzle by Justin V, which he had set in my style. He did an excellent job mimicking both my aesthetic style and the kind of logic that draws me as a setter, and you should absolutely check out his puzzle, Walking the Strip. I want to give a big thanks to both earthpuzzles and NEWS for help with testing, as well as Scojo, HatGirl, and everyone who made the event possible!
Ok, on to the rules:
Sudoku: Place the digits 1-9 once each in every row, column, and 3x3 box.
Fractal Mayhem Grid: The edges of the grid wrap around as indicated by the coloring. For example, the top cells of box five wrap to the bottom of the grid, the right edge of box 4 wraps to the right edge of the grid, and so on. Black cell borders are considered to be the grid's 'border', so r5c3 is not adjacent to r5c4.
Fractal Mayhem Yin Yang: Using 2 colors, shade the grid into 2 orthogonally connected regions. Regions may wrap around. Because of the unconventional grid geometry, the standard yin yang rule forbidding 2x2s is adapted as follows: Every intersection where cells meet must be next to at least one cell from each region, unless it lies on the grid's border. The intersections on the grid border have black dots, while all other intersections have grey dots.
Sightline Arrows: Cells with arrows count the number of cells they see within their own yin yang region in the indicated direction(s), including the arrow cell. Cells of the opposing region block vision. The black cell edges that form the grid border also block vision.
Sightline arrows are cumulative, so if a cell contains more than one arrow, it will contain a digit equal to the number of cells seen by all the arrows. Sightline arrows that wrap around the grid from a single cell to a neighboring trio will see all three rows/columns that they look towards.
The area outside the grid is available for shading or making notes.
Hope you enjoy, and click the puzzle to play!
Accessible version available here.
Solution code: Row 2 with a / between cells of opposing yin yang regions. E.g: 123/45/6789
on 17. September 2025, 05:09 by aqjhs
surfaces with boundary are mysterious creatures
on 17. September 2025, 04:29 by earthpuzzles
It was an honor to test this puzzle! The rules interact in such an elegant and playful way, and I appreciated the thoughtful touch of making the area outside the grid available for note taking.
Gotta also second the previous comment from ViKing Prime about calling this grid a “dubious mobius strip”. Perfect!
on 17. September 2025, 00:18 by ViKingPrime
I'm not exactly sure what you would call this shape of a grid, certainly not a torus. I think I will go with a "dubious mobius strip".
on 16. September 2025, 22:13 by vitaminz
Masterful stuff deserving of your name :)
Please note: The German version of this page has changed. It is possible that this page does not contain the latest information.