Japanese Sum Dutch Loop
(Published on 6. December 2025, 02:16 by yttrio)
Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply.
Draw a one-cell-wide loop of orthogonally connected cells. The loop may not touch itself, not even diagonally.
The loop acts as a Dutch Whispers line (i.e., adjacent digits on the loop must have a difference of at least 4).
Japanese Sums: Clues outside the grid give the sums of loop segments in the respective row or column, in order, where cells not on the loop separate segments. A question mark indicates any digit from 0 to 9, but no clue may have a leading zero. An asterisk denotes an arbitrary number of Japanese sum clues. This could be zero, one, or multiple.
Solution code: Digits on the loop in row 8 (left to right) followed by digits on the loop in column 8 (top to bottom)
Comments
on 8. December 2025, 21:45 by Piatato
Lovely!
on 8. December 2025, 20:39 by madhupt
A beautiful puzzle! Very smooth and full of cool deductions. Thanks for sharing this!
on 8. December 2025, 10:33 by Snookerfan
Another brilliant loop puzzle! Very smooth, thanks
on 8. December 2025, 09:35 by Exigus
Amazing. Thanks!
on 7. December 2025, 09:59 by Christounet
Awesome! Impressive minimalism as always. Thanks :)
on 6. December 2025, 22:01 by waffles_the_dog
This puzzle was great and I found the logic really interesting. I did find it quite a bit harder than 3 stars, but I think a non-zero part of that was I did the German whispers version immediately before hand and I repeatedly applied GW logic and then had to unwind it :D
Thanks for setting these two puzzles, they're really helping me understand Japanese sum logic :D
on 6. December 2025, 19:55 by Franjo
Won-der-ful! Thank you very much for creating and sharing another one of your great loop-puzzles.
on 6. December 2025, 15:12 by Calvinball
Wowser, I breezed right through this and loved every moment. Easier than it's predecessor, but just as fun and engaging.
