Zirconium
(Published on 17. March 2026, 05:30 by NicoD)
I made this puzzle for my friend's 40th birthday.
Rules
Normal sudoku rules apply.
There are nine doubler cells in the grid, one in every row, column and box. A doubler cell's value counts as double its digit. Digits may repeat in doubler cells.
The sum of the values on any line is equal to 40.
Along the green line, adjacent values differ by at least 5.
Along the pink line, values form a consecutive sequence in any order.
Box borders divide the blue line into segments with the same sum.
Along gold lines, values do not repeat and no two values appearing anywhere on the line can be consecutive.
Gray lines are palindromes, which contain the same sequence of values in either direction.
Solution code: Column 3
Comments
yesterday, 12:45 by Snookerfan
Thanks!
yesterday, 07:32 by Krisonium
40% stuck at the end, but excellent Zinc puzzle!
on 17. March 2026, 20:39 by Exigus
Another very nice puzzle. The doublers make it a bit scary but it wasn't too bad with just a little bit of arithmetic on possible line fills. Thanks!
on 17. March 2026, 20:35 by Franjo
What a wonderful birthday gift! Thank you very much for creating and sharing this lovely gem.
on 17. March 2026, 20:17 by VitP
solves very easily (level 1) using just the VISIBLE constraints until BOOM ... it doesn't.
but if you also use the INVISIBLE constraint ... it's actually quite easy, because the restrictions are severe.
eg. there's exactly ONE way to do the renban : 5+1-1+2-2
eg. a 5-cell unmodified nabner line only gets to 25.
eg. a 5-cell nabner line with only one doubler has exactly ONE fill.
--> level 2
on 17. March 2026, 16:10 by GeorgeTheToad2
The doubler rule allowing repeats made this harder than I expected. Still a very nice solve path and a 3* difficulty.
on 17. March 2026, 12:44 by mihel111
It is generally hard to make a very good puzzle with a drawing constraint meeting a theme. But this one is. Very well done. And +1 to Elliott's comment.
on 17. March 2026, 07:55 by Elliott810
Nice message;) Would be happy of feeling 40 years old... Brilliant as always. Thank you:)
