Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

This is the smaller of two puzzles created for Math Pesto as part of the Secret Santa in the CTC discord server. (The larger one can be found here.) They requested a pencil puzzle / sudoku hybrid. I had never done a pencil puzzle, but I came across one called "nurimisaki" that I found could lead to some interesting logic when crossed with sudoku. I hope you enjoy it!

Normal sudoku rules apply.

Nurimisaki rules apply - shade some cells in the grid such that the shaded cells form a single one-cell-wide orthogonally-connected (possibly branching) path. No 2x2 area can be completely shaded or unshaded. Circles are all shaded and must be orthogonally connected to the path in exactly one direction, and the digit in the circle indicates the number of consecutive shaded cells that can be seen in a straight line from the cell, including the cell itself.

The path locally acts as a renban line - during the time the path is in a box, the path will comprise a set of consecutive digits. If the path leaves and re-enters a box, this is considered a different segment. If a segment has only one path cell, it could be any digit.

Each digit must be shaded at least twice.

Example puzzle without the last restriction can be played here:

You can play the main puzzle here:

Happy solving!