Sunday, February 11, 2024

Puzzles #624 & #625 - Sushi Temple (Japanese Sums)

Before WPC 2023, I ran a Puzzle Getchu!, a contest themed on Ape Escape. I had intended to queue these puzzles for posting before WPC, but didn't have the time. Better late than never!

The thirteenth level is Sushi Temple, and is very much a Japanese shrine. Once I got past the idea of using Anglers (fish, ha ha), I went straight into Japanese Sums, which has quickly become one of my favorite number placement genres. It's both so flexible and restricted at the same time, and there's almost always a useful clue to add to disambiguate a problem. Because of that, the example puzzle was a complete non-issue to make, even with a self-imposed constraint of not duplicating a clue value and making sure to show that a question mark is not strictly a single digit number, like in some implementations.


The 25 point contest puzzle may appear themeless, but it's not. The opening steps and specifically the first few shaded cells form a torii. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have thought to go this route without being aware this is a common shrine element from the Touhou series. Hmmm, that's another idea...

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