Simon Solves Tapa Sudoku
Added 2022-05-16 09:01:00 +0000 UTCHi all,
We hope many of you will have had a chance to watch the incredible solve of Thomas Snyder of this puzzle on the main channel already. Originally I made this video intending to pick bits of it out for use in that video but it got very messy in editing so we decided to go for a "commentary" style for the main channel video. We wondered whether some of our patrons might enjoy watching Simon struggle through the puzzle so here it is :)
Serkan has just released a puzzle pack of Easy/Medium Tapa puzzles (and he invented Tapa!), which you can get here:
https://shop.gmpuzzles.com/collections/smaller-puzzle-collections/products/starter-pack-2-tapa
You can try Tapa Sudoku at the link below:
https://app.crackingthecryptic.com/sudoku/L64LJ4LQ4t
Rules:
[Please note these rules are quite complicated and a familiarity with Tapa will definitely be helpful.]
Tapa: Shade some empty cells grey to create a single connected wall. The shaded cells cannot form a 2x2 square anywhere in the grid. Numbers in a circled cell indicate the length of consecutive shaded blocks in the neighboring cells. If there is more than one number in a circled cell, then there must be at least one white (unshaded) cell between the grey cell groups. Also, all unshaded cells of the grid should contain all digits from 1 to 7 in each row and column. All cells marked with circles should contain at least one digit (and therefore they are not shaded). The digits in circles are valid clues for Tapa and pencilmark clues for sudoku. You should place one or more digits in the empty circles but you cannot make additions to given circle clues. All possible circled cells may not be given (ie there may be some cells without circles that are valid clues for both the Tapa and sudoku.)
Here is Simon's attempt:
We hope you enjoy it.
Simon & Mark
Comments
Great puzzle, enjoyed this a lot. Not massively difficult, but a challenge to keep in mind all the various strands of logic required. (Thought the rule "You should place one or more digits in the empty circles" was a bit confusing though.)
Athel Stan
2022-05-24 20:38:37 +0000 UTCWow that does completely disambiguate that! Thank you!
2022-05-18 17:13:53 +0000 UTCI can understand the confusion, as I too found the wording on the rules to be a bit confusing. The important bits to focus on are: - The digits in circles are (...) pencilmark clues for sudoku - you cannot make additions to given circle clues So in the case of the 4 clue, that is a given clue, so you cannot add anything to it, and therefore it is exclusively a 4 in terms of tapas clues. On the other hand, in the case of the 3 that's an empty circle, so we're allowed to give it more than one digit.
Mister D
2022-05-18 17:04:13 +0000 UTC
