Artisanal Sudoku, Volume 100

1. Swarm

• Fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each.

• The sum of the digits inside each cage is equal to the small number in the top left corner. Digits cannot repeat within a cage.

• Digits in cells separated by a black dot have a 1:2 ratio.

• Very rough difficulty estimate: 4/10

Play online: SudokuPad | unshaded | F-Puzzles

New to variant sudoku? Check out these beginner-friendly guides to killer cages and other popular rulesets.

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Thanks so much for joining me for the first 100 volumes of Artisanal Sudoku! I’m already excited about the next hundred, but first, as I mentioned last week, I have something special in the works to celebrate. On Wednesday morning, you’ll receive a set of five never-before-seen puzzles that I, for some reason or another, deemed “too tough” for Artisanal Sudoku.

If that doesn’t interest you, no problem! Regularly-scheduled programming will resume next Monday. But I don’t want to give the impression that these puzzles will be impossible, and toward that end, I’ll just note a few things:

• They’re all puzzles that I considered publishing here, so the difficulty should be comparable to some of the tougher puzzles that have made the cut.

• Despite my efforts to be objective, my own difficulty assessments are notoriously iffy. You might even find some of the puzzles in this set to be pretty approachable (especially if you’re comfortable with a variety of different rulesets).

• You’ll have two forums for discussing the puzzles and asking for tips: the comments on the post itself, and the #puzzle-discussion channel in the Cracking the Cryptic Discord server. I’m not planning to be too active in either place, at least not at first—I’ll check in from time to time, but I like the idea of staying out of the way and letting everyone talk things out on their own.

But that’s not all! Solve all five puzzles to unlock the URL to a hidden sixth bonus puzzle! And here’s the low-stakes prize I alluded to last week:* for the first person to send me a screenshot of the solved sixth puzzle, I’ll set a personalized puzzle in the style and difficulty of their choice (within reason).

*Is it incongruous to encourage collaboration while also offering a prize to the fastest solver? Yeah, probably. But my thinking is that some speedster will claim the prize early on, and it will be moot from there. If that doesn’t happen, then I guess all bets are off; regardless, let’s just try to have fun out there.

Anyway, that’s coming Wednesday morning. But now, back to Volume 100 proper—there’s a fog puzzle below, and also a very cool surprise related to puzzle #3.

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2. Lonely Circle

• Fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each.

• Correctly placed digits clear the fog around them.

• The sum of the digits along an arrow is equal to the digit in the connected circle. These digits can repeat if allowed by other rules. All arrow sums are single-digit, and arrows connected to different circles do not overlap or intersect.

• Digits in cells separated by a black dot have a 1:2 ratio.

• Very rough difficulty estimate: 5/10

Play online: SudokuPad

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3. Century

Big thanks to BremSter, who has already recorded a solve video for Century and scheduled it to go live at the same time this post is published. Be sure to check that out, and I’ll encourage you to subscribe to BremSter’s channel while you’re at it—if you like the puzzles here, I’m sure you’ll like the ones you’ll find over there.

• Fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each.

• Digits cannot repeat on the indicated diagonals.

• The sum of the digits inside each cage is equal to the small number in the top left corner. Digits cannot repeat within a cage.

• On thermometers, digits increase from the bulb.

• Gold (“nabner”) lines contain a non-repeating set of digits, and no two digits on the same line can be consecutive (regardless of their position on the line).
  Note: in case it’s not clear, there are exactly four gold lines in the puzzle, each of which occupies four cells along a diagonal. None of these lines extend into the center cell.

• Very rough difficulty estimates: 8/10, 6/10

Play online: SudokuPad | unshaded | F-Puzzles

Extra clues: SudokuPad | unshaded | F-Puzzles

This is, I believe, the main-feed debut of nabner lines (like renban, but backward, get it?), a constraint invented by zetamath that has some fascinating logical properties. If you’re unfamiliar, here are some examples of how they work (and don’t work):

• 1357, 6149, and 4927 would all be valid four-cell nabner lines

• 1582 is invalid because 1 and 2 are consecutive

• 4246 is invalid because there is a repeated digit

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Thanks for subscribing to Artisanal Sudoku! Feedback is always appreciated, just leave a comment, reach out on Twitter X, or reply to this email. If you liked these puzzles, you probably know someone else who’d like them too, so please spread the word. And if you’re interested in submitting a puzzle, please reach out to me on Discord or reply to this email.

For premium subscribers, hints and two more bonus puzzles are below—including a bonus fog puzzle (sort of)!

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4. Partly Cloudy