Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Now that the football world cup is starting, I felt it would be good to publish something to mark the event. I ended up with a fairly long ruleset here... As always feedback is appreciated! Enjoy :)

The last notes of your national anthem dies away and the referee raises his whistle. Behind you 20,000 fans lean forward in their seats.

It's almost time for kick-off.

As your country's star player, can you weave your way through the other team's defences and smash the ball into the top corner to grab an early lead?

*PEEEP*

Normal football rules apply: place the digits 1-9 once each in every row, column and 3x3 box.

FIFA: There are given digits in the grid, but they are coded as letters. To help you decode them, here is a clue: "world cup" = 23,15,18,12,4,3,21,16.

26: no 2x2 square within this grid may have a sum of 26.

Offside rule: within each 3x3 box, the number 9 may never be behind (on a lower row than) the numbers 1 or 2. It must always be above or on the same row as both numbers.

Goal line technology: along the white line (row 8) adjacent digits may not be consecutive.

Ball control: Digits on the brown football, including digits around the edge of the ball, have the opposite parity to all orthogonally adjacent digits on the football (i.e. on the football an even digit is surrounded by odd digits, and vice versa).

Substitute: the cell in the top right corner will remain hidden by grey fog until later in the game. This cell will be brought into play when a particular digit is entered in another cell in the grid.

Sudokupad link: https://sudokupad.app/8iktohgrmy