Japanese Sum Cave Cipher #9: Skyscraper Ring
(Eingestellt am 20. Dezember 2022, 02:44 Uhr von KNT)
Happy birthday to the brilliant and wonderful solver, tester, and friend, polar. It's only fitting to end a great year of puzzles with something crazy, and I hope this serves as a memorable gift! 2022 has been fantastic on the portal, and I look forward to everything from everyone here, both solvers and setters, in 2023. This is my favorite puzzle to date, so I hope you give it a try, and, enjoy!
------
Rules:
Shade some cells in the grid and place digits from 1-9 in the unshaded cells such that all unshaded cells are connected and all shaded cells are connected by other shaded cells to an edge of the grid. An edge of the grid in this puzzle is defined as either the inner or outer border of the ring. Digits from 1-9 may appear at most once in any row or column.
The grey area inside the ring is a skyscraper puzzle, and not part of the cave. The digits 1 to 6 must be placed in every row and column, and digits at the boundary must be valid skyscraper clues for this nested puzzle. Regarding repeats in rows and columns, digits in the grey area do not interfere with digits outside the grey area.
Clues outside the grid are Japanese Sums clues, which indicate the sums of connected digits in the respective rows or columns. At least one shaded cell must exist between each clue, the grey area is not a delimeter between two clues. On one side of each row or column, the clues given have at least one incorrect value, or are incomplete. On the other side, the clues given are correct and complete, but if more than one clue is provided, at least some of the clues are written in an incorrect order.
Clues are ciphered. Replace letters with values from 0-9 such that same letters mean same values, different letters mean different values. A "?" can be any value 0-9, and no two digit clue may have a leading 0. Note: for the sake of correctness, a "?" is correct as long as it refers to a single digit total, and a ?? is correct as long as it refers to a double digit total.
------
Solve on Penpa
------
------
Lösungscode: Row 2 followed by Column 8, S for shaded cells. 28 characters.
Kommentare
am 28. Januar 2024, 07:30 Uhr von Agent
Extremely impressive and fun puzzle! And weirdly I didn't find it that hard, except for that one blind spot at the start, one just needs to be very careful.
am 6. Mai 2023, 20:59 Uhr von wooferzfg
So much fun! Easily one of my favorite puzzles of yours.
I enjoyed the word search in the clues at the beginning too ;)
am 28. März 2023, 19:26 Uhr von KNT
@chalk235 Your cipher is correct, and the bottom of column 12 is one of the two options you have listed.
am 16. März 2023, 00:34 Uhr von lerroyy
Great puzzle and a smooth solve!
am 2. Februar 2023, 15:59 Uhr von Alex
Amazing puzzle! I love the whole series.
am 28. Januar 2023, 10:07 Uhr von ibag
Fantastic puzzle!
am 30. Dezember 2022, 13:02 Uhr von Statistica
Großartig. Mit viel schönem Verwirrungscharakter.
am 26. Dezember 2022, 13:00 Uhr von cmb
Wow!
Superb.
am 22. Dezember 2022, 08:47 Uhr von RJBlarmo
Finally caught up with this series! Every puzzle has been amazing, and this one still stands out as the best. A very difficult challenge, but well worth it!
am 21. Dezember 2022, 03:29 Uhr von KNT
Edited link to (hopefully) fix answer check. (Thanks Vebby!)
am 21. Dezember 2022, 01:35 Uhr von MagnusJosefsson
Amazing! The sheer variety of logic in this puzzle is astounding! So many little satisfying revelations sprinkled along the path, all distinctly different in nature. What an achievement to set this!
am 20. Dezember 2022, 20:18 Uhr von ONeill
Absolutely incredible! I found this one the toughest in the series, but it was definitely my favourite to crack. Thanks!
am 20. Dezember 2022, 20:03 Uhr von Myxo
Amazing puzzle, with some very deeep logic!
am 20. Dezember 2022, 11:32 Uhr von Niverio
You are lucky this puzzle is your best work by a mile, otherwise I was almost downrating it because you made me find a solution picture instead of sending me the code xD
Jokes aside, this puzzle is likely the best puzzle I have solved in 2022. And I solved a lot more, compared to my other solving years.
am 20. Dezember 2022, 10:01 Uhr von Koalagator2
Excellent Puzzle, so many fun deductions!
am 20. Dezember 2022, 09:49 Uhr von Jesper
I test-solved this puzzle a while back, and it was absolutely fantastic!
am 20. Dezember 2022, 04:18 Uhr von polar
Meisterwerk!!
Very knifflig, but also very very wunderschön! (Will learn more German vocab for next year I promise)
On a serious note, it's truly an honour to have my name on this incredible puzzle. Indeed I more than enjoyed it and it's my favourite of your puzzles by a long way. Thank you.
P.S. I hope you included the correct link :)
----
Don't worry, this is a brand new link so all bets are off :)
