Lost Town (Lost and Found #6)
(Published on 15. March 2025, 10:00 by .proxz14)
Lore (you may skip below the image if you are looking for the rules):
After the successful completion of your previous mission, you've been promoted to a detective sergeant. Your next case is in a big town roughly an hour away from the capital. Numerous people have been reported missing in a span of few days in the area. Your mission is to find out what happened in this town.
This puzzle is part of a series called "Lost and Found" in which modifications to the killer variant will be explored in the context of a detective training lore. You can find links for the rest of series below;
- #1: Rogues Gallery
- #2: Innocence is Illegal
- #3: Innocence is Legal
- #4: Onion Rings
- #5: Lost Village
- #7: Lost City
- #8: 4 Stones, 1 Bird
Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply: Place the digits 1-9 in every row, column and 3x3 box once each.
Kropki: Digits separated by a white dot must be consecutive. Digits separated by a black dot must be in a 1:2 ratio.
Ambiguous Cages: There are 4 types of cages in this puzzle all of which appear at least once. Digits in a cage, regardless of its type, can't repeat. Which cage is which type must be deduced by the solver. Every cage is denoted by a letter. Alphabetically consecutive cages can't be of the same type.
- Killer Cages: Digits in a killer cage sum to the value given in the top left corner.
- Suspect Cages: The sum of the digits in a suspect cage must be 1 away from the value given in the top left corner.
- Framed Cages: The sum of the digits in a framed cage must be 2 away from the value given in the top left corner.
- Innocent Cages: The sum of the digits in an innocent cage must be at least 10 away from the value given in the top left corner.
Victims: For every killer cage in this puzzle, there must be at least one innocent cage on the grid (the victim).
Fog: The grid is covered by fog. The tracker on the top left corner is used to track which cage belongs to which type. Fill in that tracker by using the digits 1-4. 1 for Suspect, 2 for Framed, 3 for Killer, and 4 for Innocent cages. Correctly identifying cages in the tracker will gradually uncover the fog (This does not necessarily mean that every single correct digit placed in the tracker will always uncover some of the fog).
Play on SudokuPad
Solution code: "LOST TOWN" on the tracker, followed by the largest digit in O cage. No spaces.
Comments
on 20. April 2025, 20:05 by nlanday
Really lovely puzzle. Tons of fun. One of the best I’ve ever done. One small problem is that when you try to put candidate numbers in the tracker, it checks them according to sudoku rules.
.proxz14's response: Thanks for the kind words! The digits in tracker being checked for sudoku rules is the result of the grid being initially created as a 13x13 rather than a 9x9, for some reason it results in that even though they don't have to obey sudoku rules and are not in an extra region.
on 13. April 2025, 12:27 by jinkela114514
Are there any spaces in the solution code?
.proxz14's response: No, there are no spaces in the solution code.
on 17. March 2025, 18:26 by LancelotAugustus
好玩，爱玩。
on 15. March 2025, 19:12 by hoopsie
Absolutely loved this puzzle. Super fun rule set and the puzzle flowed very well between sudoku and the detective cage work. Id say closer to 4 stars but easily one of the best puzzles I've done the last couple months.
.proxz14's response: Thank you for the high praise! Difficulty wise honestly my line of thinking was that the previous one got rated 4, so I am expecting this to be higher simply because I find it harder. Eventually we will see how it does when its rated
on 15. March 2025, 18:06 by ghaia
Sweet puzzle! I don't think this goes up to the 5* range, but it is challenging indeed. I love the rerun of the ruleset! Love my detective work indeed!! Really fun!
.proxz14's response: Sweet Comment! And thank you sergeant.
