Through Space and Time (Chaos Construction)
(Published on 23. September 2025, 09:00 by Agent)
This puzzle was made as part of Scojo's annual impostor event. My goal was to create a puzzle that could fool a solver into thinking it had been set by The Book Wyrm.
Rules
- Chaos Construction: Divide the grid in 9 regions, each made of 9 orthogonally connected cells. Place the digits 1-9 once each in every row, column and region.
- Nine spaceships go on a tour of the 9x9 grid.
- The spaceships move orthogonally, and never move onto a space that has been moved through by one of the spaceships.
- Each spaceship visits all cells in its own region without moving into a different region at any time.
- The spaceships always take one year to move from one cell to the next.
- Circles represent the positions of some spaceships at two arbitrary points in time in an arbitrary order, which must both be determined by the solver.
- Either both positions of a spaceship or neither of them are given.
- T gives the time in years since the spaceships started (at T=1, all ships are at their starting locations, and then they all start moving continuously).
- Japanese Sums: At each point in time, clues outside the grid are Japanese Sums-style clues indicating the sums of contiguous runs of cells within the row or column of the corresponding grid that are in the same region.
- Cells that haven't been visited yet by a spaceship are not counted.
- Note: A cell that hasn't been visited yet may split the same region into multiple sums.
- A '*' represents any number of unknown clues, including 0.
- Using the empty grid given, reconstruct the paths of the spaceships and then fill the digits.
Example Solution (1-6)
Main Puzzle (1-9)
You can choose to solve the puzzle either with the multigrid layout shown below, or with a condensed single grid layout.
Solution code: Digits in row 5 of the completed grid, from left to right, with a forward slash (/) for region borders.
Comments
today, 05:39 by henrypijames
I think I've misunderstood the rules. "Arbitrary" means T1 may be either before or after T2? Because the example (as well as common sense) made me assume that T1 < T2.
-- @henrypijames, that's correct, the order of the two time points is also arbitrary.
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In that case, I think the rules should also clearly state that once a cell is visited, the digit in it will be fixed and won't ever change. Otherwise, the puzzle would have many solutions. One might argue that the example clearly shows this already, but the example also "clearly shows" T1 < T2, which turns out to be merely coincidental.
yesterday, 14:05 by Adacho
This is the first 5-star sudoku I've been able to solve and it's absolutely breathtaking. Loved every minute of my 2 hour journey with this masterpiece.
yesterday, 06:31 by henrypijames
Wow, after Sea Level Rise by Magnus, another crazy hard puzzle that utilizes the progress of time.
on 24. September 2025, 23:46 by SenatorGronk
That was some brain melting fun. thanks!
on 24. September 2025, 23:41 by Jesper
Interesting and fun unusual CC, really enjoyed it, thanks!
on 24. September 2025, 11:59 by Christounet
Agent from outer space, you are the living proof that aliens do live among us. You have outdone yourself once again! Thanks :)
on 24. September 2025, 11:27 by MagnusJosefsson
Absolutely amazing! Solving this was such a unique and compelling experience. Probably my favorite puzzle this year!
on 24. September 2025, 07:50 by marcmees
Unworldly beautiful. Thanks
on 23. September 2025, 16:51 by War
Very Very fun, and also highly approachable. Chaos construction continues to be my favorite variant. Excellent setting
on 23. September 2025, 15:38 by ViKingPrime
This was so, so good. A definite highlight of the event.
on 23. September 2025, 14:15 by dumediat
Really inventive and fun! It was certainly difficult, but never brutal once one asks the right questions. Thank you!
