Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Spy vs Spy

(Published on 26. October 2025, 15:04 by Gnubeutel)

Spy vs Spy was created by Antonio Prohías for Mad Magazine in 1961 during the cold war. Two spies dressed in black and white try to fool and murder each other over and over again.
This puzzle was based on a visual idea. Don't expect any logical coherence. The solve path is accidental - although there are a few nice spots that expect you to combine overlapping rulesets to make progress.

Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply. Place the digits 1-9 in every row, column and box exactly once.

Dutch Whispers: adjacent digits on an orange line have a difference of at least 4.

Entropy: every group of three adjacent cells on a peach line (left face and feet) has to have one of each of low (123), medium (456) and high (789) digits.

Renban: magenta and purple lines consist of non-repeating, consecutive digits in any order.

Modular: every group of three adjacent cells on a cyan line (right face and feet) has to have one of each of (147), (258) and (369).

Parity lines: adjacent digits on a red line have different odd/even parity.

XV: digits separated by X add to 10, digits separated by V add to 5.

Kropki Dots: cells separated by a black dot are in a 1:2 ratio, cells separated by a white dot are consecutive.
Important: the "Spy" texts are Kropki dots. Left one is black, right one is white.

Odd Circle: the digit on a grey TNT is odd.

Please ignore the knife handle and the fuse. They are visual candy.

Play online with sudokupad.
Here's an alternate, easier to read version with straight lines.

Solution code: Digits in the last row from left to right.

Last changed on on 15. November 2025, 15:48

Solved by jalebc, SKORP17, sahi1l, ludvigr04, Jagga, josemadre, Ste1729, Postnormal, Dacmon, ikaikaw, Photyne, olliwright, dickey, Nagesh, drmegadude, BakBak, pepe74287, Zibl, Sotehr, zrbakhtiar, Crul, TaeChi, Andrewsarchus, Nell Gwyn
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Comments

on 15. November 2025, 15:48 by Gnubeutel
Clarified description of line colors.

on 29. October 2025, 08:34 by BakBak
@Ste1729 thank you for the clarification. I did struggle before I read that.

Other than the difficulty of figuring out the colours, it was a really nice solve

on 27. October 2025, 00:57 by Ste1729
This was nice, but I had a few problems with the colors (expecially the light pink line that appears light orange on my PC).

So I'll write here the lines for who comes next:
DUTCH: body and hat of the left spy
ENTROPY: face and legs of the left spy
RENBAN: body and hat of the right spy
MODULAR: face and legs of the right spy
PARITY: knife and line on top.

on 26. October 2025, 20:55 by sahi1l
Really nice! A wide variety of different deductions to make, and the design is very cute, even the simplified version.

Difficulty:2
Rating:85 %
Solved:24 times
Observed:0 times
ID:000PV4

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Solution code:

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