Impersonating yttrio: Slingshot Whisper Yin Yang
(Published on 28. September 2026, 14:49 by Piatato)
I created this puzzle for Scojo's Secret Impostor event, which works like this: the first week, every participant sets a puzzle in their own style, and the second week everyone draws someone that they will try to impersonate. I drew yttrio, and this is the puzzle that I sent in. After Scojo solved both puzzles on stream, his Twitch viewers voted on which puzzle that they thought was actually set by yttrio. I am happy to report that I somehow won the vote by a small margin, despite yttrio sending in a very clean and fun, classic yttrioesque puzzle to represent himself. I will point you all to yttrio's puzzle when/if he publishes it.
Before creating this puzzle, I first set another puzzle that perhaps is even more convincing on a surface level. However, I ultimately decided that the solvepath didn't feel quite right for an yttrio puzzle, and thus I created and sent in the puzzle below. Feel free to let me know if you agree with me or not!
Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply.
Yin Yang: Shade some cells such that all shaded cells are orthogonally connected, all unshaded cells are orthogonally connected, and no 2x2 area is fully shaded or fully unshaded.
The shaded region acts as a German Whispers line: if two orthogonally connected cells are both shaded, then the digits in those cells must have a difference of at least 5.
Yin Yang Slingshot: For any given arrow, the digit in the cell connected to its tail also appears N cells away in the direction of its tip, where N is the digit in the arrow's cell. Additionally, the cell being pointed to (N cells away from the arrow tip) must be shaded.
Solution code: Digits in shaded cells in row 3 and row 7.
Comments
on 2. October 2026, 09:17 by Playmaker6174
Lovely setting with how the shaded region works overall :)
on 29. September 2026, 17:33 by Piatato
I was btw in particular inspired by 000NS7, which had a similar ruleset. Can recommend checking it out!
on 29. September 2026, 06:51 by Saltensity
Very nice and fun puzzle! Loved how the YY and the slingshots worked well together, thank you! :)
on 29. September 2026, 05:00 by Joyofrandomness
Thanks so much! Two of my favorite variants and what a delightful combo!
on 28. September 2026, 23:12 by BenTen
That was a very fun and enjoyable puzzle. Thanks yttrio... I mean Piatato!
on 28. September 2026, 19:46 by lootyloot
Amazing puzzle, I wish i could die and reincarnate to solve this one for a first time again. -lootyloot
on 28. September 2026, 19:32 by Aaronomys
Interesting ruleset and phenomenal execution!
on 28. September 2026, 19:30 by pmays123
Very nice. Thanks!
on 28. September 2026, 19:14 by sujoyku
Awesome puzzle! Thank you, Piatato!
on 28. September 2026, 16:38 by Franjo
Thank you very much for creating and sharing this beautiful YY-hybrid. It really feels like an yttrio-puzzle!
on 28. September 2026, 15:48 by Christounet
Great impersonating of yttrio! If I hadn't tested it before, it could have fooled me!
And I know how much work (and sweat) went into creating this puzzle, so hats off for that too. Thanks :)
on 28. September 2026, 15:46 by cyddrdrd
Cool!
on 28. September 2026, 15:00 by yttrio
If I didn't know better, I could have been convinced that I set this puzzle, but just had the memory of setting it erased :)
Very well done!
