Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

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  INTRODUCTION:

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Whoa! Wall-of-text jumpscare... feel free to scroll down for the puzzle. The TL;DR is, Marty is great, my fellow setters are all great. YOU, dear solver, are great. Enjoy!

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You have arrived at the end, which was also the beginning. This was the first puzzle that was set as part of Marty's birthday puzzle pack and as such, it was meant to serve as a sort of design document. The idea was to honour Marty and give him the experience he could never have on his own - that anticipation for next week's Rat Run. We didn't want it to be a parody of his style however, rather something that would surprise and delight our target audience (i.e. Marty).

This puzzle was intended - right from the very start - to be unabashedly, unwaveringly unhinged. It was meant to give permission to the other setters in the group to really explore the creative side of what a maze puzzle might be. It was not, I must stress, really intended for consumption by a wider audience... and yet here we are, welcome to the dark recesses of our minds, heliopolix and I. We hope you enjoy your stay!

This certainly isn't the hardest puzzle of the bunch, though it may be the strangest. The challenge will come from the amount of visual information and your potential unfamiliarity with toroidal grids. I want to reassure you, however, there is a great deal of elegant sudoku to be found in this puzzle, which I lay squarely at the feet of heliopolix's genius. Anything you love about this puzzle most assuredly came from him, whereas anything you might find awkward or downright uncomfortable, well, I'm sorry (note: your solving experience will likely be improved by using a desktop and keeping outlines on digits turned on).

Before you tackle this final level, I want to say a few words about the man of the hour. You may not know him personally, but you know enough from his works to know him truly, which if kindness could be given digital form it would be a Marty Sears puzzle. The sudoku community would not be where it is today without his gentle, guiding hand, nor would the trajectory of my own life even have been what it is today, without having known him. For that I am ever grateful.

He's one of many shining examples within this wonderful community, of which I would include every single member of this impromptu band of setters:
heliopolix, sujoyku, ratfinkz, Lake, Scojo, ThePedallingPianist, ChinStrap, blackjackfitz, and Justin.

Thank you everyone, for making this community what it is and for making this project one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

...and thank YOU, dear solver, for sticking with us and making it this far. Good luck on this last leg of your journey.

P.S.

Stay tuned for a bonus puzzle!

Also, for a truly deep cut, if you're active on the Cracking the Cryptic Discord, there's a small chance you might recognize this photo. If you run into Sven, tell him it finally got published:

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  PUZZLE:

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  RULES:

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Fill the grid with the digits 1-9 so that digits don't repeat in a row, column or 3x3 box (marked with dotted lines).
Read further to find what happened to box 5...
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#FRIENDSHIPGOALS:
Keep Calm and Puzzle On - Heliopotomus the Hippo has eaten his way out of worse pickles than this one (including a particularly stubborn gherkin, ask him about it sometime). Heliopotomus's sweet tooth has completely taken over and only by finding a path through the maze and reaching the donut, can he finally quash his insatiable hunger.
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MOVEMENT:
The path must not visit any cell more than once, cross itself or pass through any thick maze walls. As well as moving orthogonally, Helio may move diagonally — if there's a 2x2 space in which to do so — but may never pass diagonally through the rounded end / corner of a wall.
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FORBIDDEN DOORS:
Values connected by a red X sum to 10. Helio may not pass directly through a red X.
(first seen in "RAT RUN 8: Discontinuous")

ONE-WAY DOORS:
Helio may only pass directly through a purple arrow if moving in the direction the arrow is pointing. An arrow always points to the smaller of the two digits it sits between.
(first seen in "RAT RUN 4: Borderline")

TELEPORTS:
Entering a teleport will cause Helio to be instantly transported to the matching coloured teleport. From there he can continue his journey. Matching teleports always have identical digits; teleports that don't match always have different digits (if a teleporter is used, it counts as the same digit being visited twice in a row).
(first seen in "RAT RUN 6: Equilibrium")

TORUS:
The grid is also a donut (Helio loves donuts). This means that cells on opposite sides of the grid are adjacent! (e.g. R2C1 is orthogonally adjacent to R2C9 and diagonally adjacent to R1C9 and R3C9). The hole of the donut has been separated from the grid and thus boxes 2 / 8 and 4 / 6 are also considered adjacent (e.g. R5C3 is orthogonally adjacent to R5C7 and diagonally adjacent to R4C7 and R6C7; however, in this grid R3C5 could not connect to R7C6 due to the wall). The separated box will not follow the rules of normal Sudoku but must still contain the digits 1-9.
(many examples may be found in the puzzles of heliopolix, aqjhs and ThePedallingPianist, among others)

TRAPDOORS and BUTTONS:
Helio should not step on a trapdoor without first locking it shut, making it safe to cross. To make it safe to step on a trapdoor, Helio must first press all the circular buttons that match the colour of the trapdoor. A digit on a coloured button indicates how many buttons of that colour contain that digit.
(first seen in "RAT RUN 17: Trapdoors")
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TRIALS and TRAILS:
In this test of friendship, the entire path is a palindrome line and must read the same from both directions (e.g. 1527251). You have room off the side of the grid to extend your lines, if that helps for tracking purposes.

...and don't forget, any teleporter visited will count as the same digit appearing twice in sequence. You've got this!

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