Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Potentially Pointer, Possibly Parity Party

(Published on 9. March 2026, 16:47 by SennyK)

Potentially Pointer, Possibly Parity Party

Today I am happy to present a puzzle that combines two Scojo's prompts - "Ambiguity + Disjoint" prompt and second phase of a prompt redeemed by Juggler, to create a puzzle using constraints created by other setters in phase one :-)

I went with Pointer Sum from the puzzle Few Pointers by Palpot and After Parity Party Sum by Flinty, although he has not published his puzzle - but Palpot also covered this constraint in a puzzle Second Chance.

I hope you will enjoy and I would be really grateful for all the comments and ratings.

Normal sudoku rules apply.

Diagonal: Digits along the marked diagonal must not repeat.

Ambiguity: A clue outside the grid is either a Pointer Sum or an After Parity Party Sum (or both).

Pointer Sum: A clue outside the grid gives the sum of all digits N that are N steps away from the digit X, where X is the row or column number.
For example, if row 5 is 159283467, then the sum would be 16 (1+2+6+7).

After Parity Party Sum: A clue outside the grid gives the sum of all digits up to, and including, the second parity switch in that direction.
For example, if row 5 is 159283467, then the sum would be 28 (1+5+9+2+8+3) from the left side and 20 (7+6+4+3) from the right side.
If row 5 is 135792468, then any clue would be invalid, as there would be no second parity switch.

SudokuPad Link

If you liked this puzzle, I recommend trying out my other puzzles :-)

Solution code: Fifth (5th) column of the grid from top to bottom.

Last changed on on 13. September 2026, 15:32

Solved by ChinStrap, palpot, SKORP17, Flinty, HertogHJ, Scojo, karlmortenlunna, bansalsaab, zeniko, marcmees, BlazingSnow, AzureFire, Zzzzz..., Gnosis66, War, illegel, steeto, NEWS, peacherwu2, han233ing, widjo, Silverstep, kangaroo
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Comments

on 24. July 2026, 16:21 by Silverstep
Quite elegant! Didn't expect that from this ruleset. This had a feel of a case-checking nightmare when I saw it (it was not)

Agree with marcmees on the 3 star difficulty.

on 11. April 2026, 18:46 by peacherwu2
I find this very entertaining in the middle. Thank you!!!

on 13. March 2026, 15:36 by War
Beautiful flow of logic, tricky at points

on 13. March 2026, 15:17 by Gnosis66
Lots of fun. I hadn't seen the Pointer Sum rule before, and it added some quirky and interesting logic.

Last changed on 10. March 2026, 11:49

on 10. March 2026, 09:00 by marcmees
Lots of counting fun. Thanks (so smooth I got it rated at 3* difficulty but surprisingly it turned into a 5* puzzle)

Difficulty:5
Rating:88 %
Solved:23 times
Observed:3 times
ID:000RTK

Variant combination Online solving tool

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Solution code:

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