Phistomefel's Sudoku Hunt - Updated Version

In Nori Nori can dominoes overlap? Because I'm at an impasse where either way I place some shaded cells they are gonna create an overlap at a 90 degree angle to be specific.

Posted in the other thread as well: Late to the party here, but in the "raging river" puzzle, what does ? * really mean? If the question mark can be zero, why would it not just be a star and nothing more?

send a screenshot and I can help. Everything falls into place with outside-of-the-box logic

The Voyage is definitely a tough one! probably because I have a hard time with snake puzzles... Can't seem to find a way to start it

Annie-Pier Tremblay

Daniel: I was stuck where you are stuck, looks like. My next step involved a little bit of algebra, counting the same thing in two ways.

Oh wow finally made some progress. Yeah, that's an insane level of genius. Took me a bunch of trial and error until I figured out the logical path forward, which had me staring in disbelief at some of the steps involved.

Same here. We got also some shadings and 6 digits in about 30min. It took us just 405 minutes more to find the rest of them :D We just want to say: Phistomefel, you are an incredible genius! Thank you so much for this absolutely stunning, mindblowing and fun hunt. Especially the last one (The ancient wall) was incredibly challenging but the break in was really astonishing! We both hated and loved it so much :D

N+T Sudoku Solving Ltd.

Thank you, not sure if that’s going to make it easier or harder 😕

Thanks for the clarification. Was really stuck and was about to be naughty and make an assumption

It indeed doesn't say you can't

Can I have 2x2 island in the archipelago? I’m not seeing anything that says I can’t

For those wondering the same thing the answer is yes, solved the puzzle but it took me a while.

I got 6 digits in like 30 minutes and now I’m staring at it for another 30 minutes and have absolutely nothing. I’m gonna give it some more time but it unfortunately feels like I might have to give up on phistomephels greatest puzzle 😢

When the circle counts up to 9 cells then it must count itself, otherwise it could only count up to 8 cells. Not that there were any way that it could include all 9 cells (or 8, for that matter).

Alexander Herges

I've solved it - I think there are some comments on the Patreon Chat on the Discord server

Based on the example, it must count itself as a 3x3 centered on the circle is the only way I can understand the example solution makes any sense.

Matthew Hay

Have failed The Voyage 3 or 4 times so far. Can someone confirm that the circles counts itself? The wording of the rules conflicts slightly. They say the surrounding (up to 9) cells. Just double checking this rule as I haven't been able to fault my logic that keeps leading to conflicts otherwise. Sorry for formatting. Mobile won't let me put in paragraphs.

Brian Ctrl

If you're talking about "Archipelago" then 2x2 squares of island cells are allowed in the main puzzle. It would be odd to have this extra rule for the example only.

Vadim

Same here. The example has multiple solutions. Here is a second one: 365 214 214 356 651 432 432 561 546 123 123 645

Vadim

I’m loving the puzzles so far, got stuck on the basalt cave though. It’s not in the rules but it’s the rule of every cage puzzle I’ve done so far so I gotta ask here, can there be 2x2 regions of cave (unshaded) cells?

Keep thinking about it. I don’t wanna spoil it because the break in there is so beautiful. Maybe try a different approach, or ask yourself how you can think about it differently.

I'm pretty much stumped on it now; I got 7 digits (including the given) and 2 x-wings.

Silly me for missing that. Thank you!

I was having a similar issue with that ambiguity. Think it of like this: You must be able to travel orthogonally from a given shaded cell to any other shaded cell in the grid. This means that it is possible for two shaded cells to just make contact diagonally, but ONLY if you can travel from one to the other by taking some orthogonally connected path.

Nikhil Boorgu

Agreed! I was pretty close to giving up on it, was pretty stumped. Felt great to finally crack it though. Its really a puzzle that deserves to be seen by everyone on the channel. Although, Simon and Mark might have both solved it already for testing.

Stuart Tierney

They've actually clarified in this update post that numbers may not repeat in cages, like normal killer sudoku rules :)

Pasting the same question here as I did in the original post: For Nori Nori, may the digits in the cage repeat? It doesn’t explicitly say that in the rules

The ancient wall is an absolute masterpiece. I’m lost in admiration for that one.

Thanks very much. Every triple I read as breaking into sets of 3 separate ones.

sampath kumar

TO THE AUTHORS: In order to get the solution words, do I have to return to the pdf or is the link to the app (and subsequently the web app itself) responsible for displaying the solution words in the "success" pop-up?

This is a bit (a lot) of a guess, but could it help to clear your cache in Safari? Just in case the app got updated recently to support this puzzle hunt, and the version in your cache is too old.

It needs an extra constraint that you can't have a 2x2 square of unshaded (island) cells. There are some comments about this on the previous Patreon post ("The Phistomefel Puzzle Hunt").

The App version rather than the browser version doesn’t seem to understand the puzzle, I copied the solution back to the browser and was given a different response. Perhaps the app version needs to be updated at some point, it still only has the original colors, though it seems no new version is ready yet

Jon McGrath

Same here. The example seems impossible to me.

Has anyone solved the Archipelago example puzzle? I solved the main puzzle but stumped with the example, it is strange.

Stuart Tierney

I think you've forgot about the sum line constraint. At the start of the snake you have a 4-2-5 run that has no sum, also the 2-5-1 next to it. And you have a 4-5-4 run between box 5 and 6.

Stuart Tierney

I am having issues with the Voyage example puzzle(second puzzle in set). I seem to see multiple options satisfying conditions given. I would appreciate if anyone has the time and points to what is wrong here. If the rows are 246135, 531246, 163524, 452361, 314652, 625413. The snake starts in box1(4 cells 6425) then box3 (3 cells 165) then box5(3 cells 145) then box 6(4 cells 4132) and box 5(1 cell 1)

sampath kumar

So mine is NOT working properly? Am I the only one missing the solution words? Anyone else using macOS Big Sur (11.7.2) and Safari 16.2 (16614.3.7.1.7, 16614) and getting a result?

The congratulations pop up should contain the solution word and story bit, when working properly that is.

Yes, I'm using the "FINAL" PDF. When I finish a puzzle on app.crackingthecryptic.com in the Apple Safari browser I just get a normal "congratulations" pop-up with the time I took. Should the app somehow redirect to the pdf which I have open in "Preview" (Apple's document viewer)?

Found that out later, was stuck initially and wasn't sure if that would help. Got the puzzle done though

Christian John Hazlett

There is not, no restriction for shaded or unshaded there.

Is there a 2x2 restriction on the cave fortress puzzle for unshaded cells?

Christian John Hazlett

The Android SudukoPad app didn't show the solution words for me, even if I started from the second PDF, but the web app does show them.

Make sure you're using the second PDF that was sent, with "FINAL" in its name, as the first didn't include the solution words

George Foot

They have to be connected orthogonally.

On the third puzzle (archipelago), do the shaded cells have to be connected orthogonally or is diagonally sufficient? It isn't clear in the instructions.

Kim Geiger

Clicking the link to the pdf downloads the file. The links in the pdf document call up the puzzles correctly in the browser (Safari on macOS). Finishing the puzzle does not however reveal a solution word? Any ideas?