RAT RUN 21: Friendly
(Published yesterday, 01:00 by marty_sears)
- Normal sudoku rules apply.
- AIM OF EXPERIMENT: Finkz and Phinx must both reach the cupcakes by finding a path through the maze. The paths must not visit any cell more than once, cross themselves or each other, or pass through any thick maze walls. The paths may not share cells except for where they meet at the cupcake cell.
- As well as moving orthogonally, Finkz and Phinx may move diagonally if there's a 2x2 space in which to do so, but may never pass diagonally through a round wall-spot on the corner of a cell.
- BLACKCURRANTS: If two digits are joined by a blackcurrant, one is double the other.
- GRAPES: If two digits are joined by a grape, they have a difference of at least 5.
- FORBIDDEN DOORS: If two digits are joined by a red X, they sum to 10. Finkz and Phinx may not pass directly through a red X.
- TEST CONSTRAINT: In this experiment, a cell may only be visited by Finkz or Phinx if its digit matches its row number, column number or box number. (Boxes are numbered 1-9 in normal reading order from top left to bottom right.)
Solution code: Digits in row 3 NOT visited by either rat, from left to right
Comments
today, 12:07 by mscha
Finkz is back! And Phinx! Yay!
Very tough start of series 3, definitely 5 stars for me. But (as always) very nice!
today, 11:20 by davidz32z
Love love love! Took me awhile to get back in the mindset, can't wait for the rest of the phase <3
today, 05:21 by etoler
I'm really trying hard not to cry about the lonely Sudoku rat who finally met a long-awaited friend. Unfortunately, I'm a sucker, so it's a battle I'm destined to lose.
today, 01:46 by Atticus837
A beautiful way to return to the series, and a lovely introduction for Phinx!
Can't wait for the next one.
today, 00:21 by Ratfinkz
Loved it!!! So worth the wait :)
Glad I solved by myself too and ignored those people haha
Also... that picture at the bottom is adorable!
yesterday, 23:59 by Flinty
Very nice! :)
yesterday, 21:08 by blackjackfitz
Huzzah!
yesterday, 20:11 by Calvinball
Triumphant return to the series. Also mad respect to marty because at some point he's going to have to update the graphics on over 60 lmd puzzle pages for this lol.
Marty: haha that is starting to take longer than actually designing the puzzles
yesterday, 19:55 by dzamie
Woo, new rat run! Good to see Finkz is doing well, and remains friendly with her new friend.
yesterday, 19:20 by bboom
Lovely to have a new set of rat runs, and this one held up the tradition of looking fairly impossible at the start, and still solving in a very reasonable time anyway.
Also Phinx is clearly the cuter looking one!
yesterday, 18:45 by vfig
twice as many rats, twice as hard to get started (or so it seemed to my sleepy brain). not my favourite constraint type but an excellent choice thematically. super excited for the continuation of the series!
yesterday, 18:41 by CorpJigsQuand
Harder than expected. Then realized that the non-black dots are green and nothing has to be consecutive...i would be a terrible rat.
yesterday, 15:56 by nunc
Hard, but beautiful. Thanks a lot. I'm looking forward to the next puzzles!
yesterday, 14:48 by Exigus
Delightful. Thanks!
yesterday, 14:31 by Franjo
Welcome back, Finkz and Phinx! I’m so happy to meet you again. Thank you very much, Marty, for creating and sharing another episode of the most popular puzzle-series the world has ever seen.
yesterday, 14:19 by Myfyr MJ
That was great fun. Can’t wait to see what Simon makes of this one.
yesterday, 14:08 by QuintusScaevola
These puzzles are just an absolute delight. Thank you Marty.
yesterday, 13:58 by Tortugo
I am just getting started, and I’m not sure if the paths are allowed to be “tangent” to one another. For example, can path 1 enter a cell from the left and exit up, while path 2 enters the same cell from the right and exits down? I think the rules as stated do technically prohibit this but one could argue they don’t.
Anyway I am so glad Finkz et al. are back and I can’t wait to struggle through this season.
Marty: thanks for the feedback, I have tweaked the wording of the rules very slightly which should hopefully clarify things
yesterday, 12:07 by raaaaa
Great puzzle! But I found a little bug, did you forget to change the link about 21 in the previous puzzle? I tried to return to this puzzle through other previous puzzles but failed.
Marty: Yes I haven't gone back yet and updated all the links in previous puzzles. The bigger the series gets, the longer that takes!
yesterday, 10:40 by alexsmart
> So, who is who?
Maybe the big reveal at the end of this series would be that the rats are, in fact, indistinguishable quantum particles like photons (excitations of the same underlying RAT field perhaps) so the question would be meaningless.
yesterday, 06:59 by vfig
cannot wait to solve this one tomorrow morning!
yesterday, 05:56 by Angara
So, who is who? Thanks for this brilliant!
yesterday, 03:42 by KelleyCook
I'm on team Phinx!
yesterday, 02:35 by chinesemaster
So brilliant! Thanks so much for bringing Finkz back!
yesterday, 01:18 by sujoyku
Yay, Rat Run is back! Thank you for the new season, Marty! You start it off in style: with another banger of a puzzle.
