Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Hi, This is my attempt at a crossover of a sudoku and a minesweeper(ish) puzzle. I think it has ended up harder than I intended, but there is some really fun logic that I enjoyed working with. In particular I think the intended break-in (there may be other ways) is really nice although quite challenging to come across given the nature of the puzzle and is still quite surprising to me. I hope you enjoy :)

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Rules:

Normal Sudoku rules apply.

Kropki dots: Digits in cells joined by a white dot are consecutive. Digits in cells joined by a black dot are in a 1:2 ratio.

Minesweeper-style rules:

Bombs:
The digit 8 is a small bomb with a bomb count of 1. The digit 9 is a big bomb with a bomb count of 2.

Counting Cells:
Cells containing 1-4 give the total bomb count of their surrounding cells (up to 8, including diagonals).

Neutral digits:
Cells containing a 5, 6 or 7 do not interact with these minesweeper-style rules.

Bunker walls:
The blue rectangles between cells are bunker walls. Walls block orthogonal bomb counting between a counting cell (1–4) and a bomb (8 or 9).
Diagonal interactions are not blocked unless two walls meet at a corner between the cells.
e.g. the bomb counting interaction between r2c3 and r3c4 is blocked but the walls do not separate r2c4 and r3c3.

Central safety cell (r5c5):
This cell, indicated by the green square, is exempt from Minesweeper rules.
If it contains 8 or 9, it does not count as a bomb for its neighbours.
If it contains 1–4, it does not need to match its surrounding bomb total.

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For the bunker walls I have given some visual examples to help clarify things below the puzzle image. I have also hidden some text to indicate the intended break-in at the bottom of this page if you are stuck or if you did it with some other strategy and are curious as to how I intended the solve to start.

SudokuPad link

Here are some simple visual indicators as to how the bunker walls work using a 1 to count the bombs. The green (top row) boxes are valid and the orange (bottom row) boxes break the rules.

Highlight below for the start of the intended solve path, sorry if it is hard to follow and/or hard on the eyes, you should be able to copy and paste the text somewhere to make it easier to read:

1) Loose Clue: 4s cannot only take bombs from their own box as any box contains one 8 and one 9 for a count of 3. they need another bomb from another box to reach a count of 4.

2) Highlight the cells that can contain a 4. These are along box boarders so rows and columns 3, 4, 6, and 7 (and the safety square!). Notice the 2x2 corners of the grid are not highlighted. Therefore, you cannot place a 4 on the phistomefel ring and can remove the ring cells from the highlighted selection.

3) Notice that 4 can now only go on the safety square in box 5 given the placement of 4s in boxes 2 and 8, and, 4 and 6.

I will stop giving a solve path here - the rest of the puzzle is done with Kropki and minesweeper rule deductions.