Slingshot Whisper Loop
(Published on 14. June 2025, 01:56 by yttrio)
Rules:
Normal Sudoku rules apply.
Draw a one-cell-wide loop of orthogonally connected cells. The loop may not touch itself, not even diagonally.
The loop acts as a German Whispers line (i.e., adjacent digits on the loop must have a difference of at least 5).
Loop 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 on the loop.
For example, if r1c2 was 3 and r1c3 was 4, then r5c3 must also be 3, and r5c3 must be on the loop (r1c2 and r1c3 may be either on or off the loop).
6x6 Example:
The image below shows a sample 6x6 puzzle and solution with the same rule set.
Note: For 6x6 Sudoku, adjacent digits on a German Whispers line must have a difference of at least 3 (instead of the usual 5)
Play the example 6x6 in SudokuPad.
Solution code: Digits on the loop in row 6 (left to right) followed by digits on the loop in column 9 (top to bottom)
Comments
on 21. June 2025, 05:34 by fitzie
this was a really good ruleset. it takes a while for the breaking but as you can familiar with the ruleset, the solve becomes smooth, but not simple the rest of the way.
on 20. June 2025, 19:38 by marcmees
took me ages to get past R8. Very well constructed. Great fun. thanks.
on 20. June 2025, 09:22 by Crusader175
Fun puzzle!
on 17. June 2025, 05:58 by th3d1c3m4n
Great one, felt more like a 4* difficulty, but maybe because I'm not comfy with slingshots
on 15. June 2025, 11:50 by Exigus
I love slingshots.
on 14. June 2025, 14:20 by Franjo
Brilliant use of the cleverly placed slingshots here! I have no idea how you make all these extraordinary loop puzzles, but I love them. Thank you very much for creating and sharing another one of them.
