Dr. Sudoku Prescribes: A 12/24 Calcu-doku

Friday, 24 December 2010 03:56

Dr. Sudoku Prescribes: A 12/24 Calcu-doku

E-mail

Rate this item

(0 votes)

Thomas Snyder (aka Dr. Sudoku) is a two-time World Sudoku Champion and five-time US Puzzle Champion, as well as the author of several books of puzzles. His puzzles are hand-crafted, with artistic themes, serving as a kind of “cure for the common sudoku.” Each week he posts a new puzzle on his blog, The Art of Puzzles. This week’s prescription is a themed Calcu-doku puzzle

for 12/24, with only those numbers as clues.

This year saw the release of my unique take on KenKen(TM)/Calcu-doku puzzles: the book TomTom Puzzles. “Humanizing” calcu-doku puzzles, by creating more interesting puzzles to look at, as well as more interesting puzzles to solve, has been a real signature of my recent construction. I explored many types of visual themes for puzzles in that book, and one of the common ones not involving region shapes is having just one or two clue values repeated throughout the puzzle. For example, I made a 24/7 puzzle that was fit to be solved any time on any day, and a “Dirty Dozen” puzzle with exactly twelve 12s and no other clues.

Today’s date is a really good one for making another themed challenge of that type, using just the numbers 12 and 24 which are convenient products and sums. This puzzle is a bit hard, but I’ll be adding some hints in the comments later this weekend if you get stuck. Happy Puzzling!

Rules: Enter a digit from 1 to 8 into each cell so that no digit repeats in any row or column. The number in the upper-left of each bolded cage must equal the value of a mathematical operation (+ or x) applied to all the digits in the cage. Digits can repeat in a cage, provided they don’t repeat in a row/column.