War of the Creatures
(Published on 22. August 2026, 20:36 by balpha)
In a land and time far away from our own, a war is raging between the mythical creatures. Dragons and unicorns are fighting fierce battles over the nine continents of the world.
As the dust settles, both races colonize their conquered realms in the ways of theirs ancestors. Dragons are loners and prefer to remain isolated with clear boundaries between estates. Unicorns on the other hand are social creatures who prefer settling in groups.
And before long, the dark memories of the days of war fade into history, making way for a future of peaceful coexistence.
Rules
Normal Sudoku rules apply.
No digit appears more than once on the same creature.
In each 3x3 box, take the sum of all digits on dragons, and the sum of all digits on unicorns. Whichever creature has the higher sum has conquered the box.
Unicorns and dragons are evenly matched: four boxes are conquered by the dragons, four boxes go to the unicorns, and one box is a draw and not conquered by either race.
In a box conquered by dragons, any two orthogonally adjacent cells have opposite parities (i.e. one is even, one is odd).
In a box conquered by unicorns, every cell has an orthogonally adjacent neighbor in the same box with a digit that is one lower or higher. (In other words: every cell is part of a domino with consecutive digits, where both cells share the box.)
Author's difficulty estimate: I would probably call this a 2.5, but since I tend to overestimate the difficulty compared to the community vote, I went for 2.
Solution code: Row 8
Comments
today, 01:52 by abadx
Quite original logic and not difficult at all once you think about the implications of the rules. Should have more solvers.
2 stars for me
[balpha:] I agree, I would love for more people to try it out :D Thank you for the comment!
on 24. August 2026, 13:01 by tehbertl
Some great logic, this deserves more eyeballs for sure.
I'd put it at a 3* for difficulty but do have to say I messed myself up by not thinking about the one box that isn't conquered by either race.
[balpha:] Thank you very much, I really appreciate the comment as I was quite happy with the logic myself!
on 22. August 2026, 22:57 by varepsilon
Very lovely and nicely set puzzle! Especially enjoyed how parity came into play. I'd say it's 3*. Thanks for sharing!
[balpha:] Thank you so much for the nice comment, I love hearing that!
