1. Skewers
Normal sudoku rules apply (fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each), and all clues are standard.
Killer cages: the sum of the digits inside each cage is equal to the small number in the top left corner.
Thermometers: digits on thermometers increase from the bulb.
The digit in the cell with a shaded square must be even.
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.
Since I don’t have any other news this week, I thought I’d do something I only do a few times a year, which is to appeal to free and non-subscribers to consider signing up for the premium version of Artisanal Sudoku. For just $5/month, you get:
two additional puzzles per week,
hints and tips for all five puzzles, and
complete access to the archive, which now contains more than 500 (!) puzzles
Here’s a bit of a peek behind the curtain (this is going somewhere, I promise). For the vast majority of puzzles I design, once it’s done I save a link and a screenshot and then don’t think about it again until at least a month later. This allows me, in theory, to approach with a fresh perspective when I revisit the puzzle, and at that time I give it a quality rating from 1-5, which roughly translates to:
This is nothing. Throw it away. (In fact, there are no 1s in the vault; they’ve all been thrown away.)
Not good enough to publish, but can potentially be salvaged with a few changes.
Not great, but good enough to publish if I don’t have something better.
Solid, definitely good enough to publish.
Exceptional. [Edit: on reflection, I wish I’d chosen a different word here, because “exceptional” sounds immodest. But I meant it in the sense of “an exception to the usual quality of my puzzles.”]
It should go without saying that this is subjective—I’m sure I’ve published some 5s that people didn’t love, and I may have some 2s and 3s lying around that are better than I think—but what matters is that these ratings are my honest assessments. If I think a puzzle is mediocre, I'm not going to give it a 4 or 5 just so I can feel better about publishing it.
This all brings me to a confession: early on, I was reluctant to use 4s and 5s as bonus puzzles. There’s always a give-and-take between wanting to provide great content for the people who are paying for it and wanting your best work to be available to the widest possible audience, and it used to be that the latter would often win out.
But that’s not really the case anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time, for a few reasons. One is that I’ve started taking submissions—contributors are paid for their work, by the way—and have continued to improve as a setter, which means most weeks I’m able to fill the slate with 4s and 5s. Also, while the audience for the bonus puzzles will always be smaller, it’s grown to the point that I now feel totally comfortable putting a puzzle I love behind the paywall.
In other words, I think there are a lot of bonus puzzles in the archive that are just as good as, if not better than, some of the best puzzles from the main feed, and that number will only increase as the weeks go on. But that’s just my opinion—if you want to find out for yourself without making a commitment, you’re welcome to sign up for a free 7-day trial :)
(It’s still the case that the bonus puzzles are more likely to involve logic and rulesets that are a bit more esoteric than what you’ll find in the main feed, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule, and of course there are always hints if you need a nudge.)
And, as always, even if you’re not interested in hints or bonus puzzles, I’ll still encourage you to consider signing up (if and only if you can afford to do so, of course) because support from premium subscribers is what allows me to spend the time it takes to prepare a new slate of quality puzzles week after week and to pay contributors for their submissions. And if that’s not an option for you, you can always support Artisanal Sudoku by helping to spread the word. Thanks!
2. Ticket Stub
Normal sudoku rules apply (fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each), and all clues are standard.
German whispers: along green lines, digits must differ from their neighbors by at least 5.
Quadruple circles: a digit inside a white circle must appear in at least one of the four cells surrounding that circle.
Very rough difficulty estimate: 5/10
Play online: SudokuPad | F-Puzzles
3. Kodiak
Normal sudoku rules apply (fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each), and all clues are standard.
Killer cages: the sum of the digits inside each cage is equal to the small number in the top left corner.
Arrows: the sum of the digits along an arrow is equal to the digit in the connected circle, and these digits can repeat if allowed by other rules.
Renban lines: purple lines contain a non-repeating set of consecutive digits in any order.
Digits in cells separated by a black dot have a 1:2 ratio.
Very rough difficulty estimates: 9/10, 7/10
Play online: SudokuPad | F-Puzzles
Extra clues: SudokuPad | F-Puzzles
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. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle, please reach out to me on Discord or reply to this email. And if you want to try more of my puzzles—including several that are tougher than the ones you’ll find here—check out my page on Logic Masters Deutschland.
This week’s meta-description:
Putting a (pretty tough) indexing puzzle behind the paywall in the same post that includes a plea for more premium subscribers feels like a questionable decision, at best. But, hey, there are literally hundreds of non-indexing puzzles in the archive!
For premium subscribers, hints and two more bonus puzzles are below. As noted in the meta-description, there a pretty tough indexing puzzle in this one, and I’m a little nervous about that. But it’s a good puzzle, IMO!
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