Artisanal Sudoku, Volume 175

1. Treadmill

• Normal sudoku rules apply (fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each), and all clues are standard.

• Cages: the sum of the digits inside each cage is equal to the small number in the top left corner.

• 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: 3/10

Play online: SudokuPad | unshaded

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

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2. Herding

• Normal sudoku rules apply (fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each), and all clues are standard.

• Thermometers: digits on thermometers increase from the bulb.

• Digits in cells with a shaded square are even.

• Digits in cells separated by a white dot are consecutive.

• Very rough difficulty estimate: 5/10

Play online: SudokuPad

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3. Arecibo

• Normal sudoku rules apply (fill each row, column, and 3x3 box with the digits 1-9 once each), and all clues are standard.

• Digits cannot repeat on the indicated diagonal.

• German whispers: along green lines, digits differ from their neighbors by at least 5.

• Renban lines: purple lines contain a non-repeating set of consecutive digits in any order.

• Digits in cells with a shaded square are even.

• Digits in cells separated by a V sum to 5.

• Digits in cells separated by an X sum to 10.

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

Play online: SudokuPad

Extra clues: SudokuPad

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Some other puzzles I enjoyed this week:

• Twelve Monkeys, by Fuxia

• The Apartment Below, by misclick & Michael Lefkowitz

• Bonus Twos, by damo_89

And I also thought this would be a fitting time to dig up UltraStar, from Volume 62, for reasons that will be clear to a very small number of you 😁

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This week’s meta-description:
Already getting excited about Volume 180… but let’s not let that distract us from Volume 175, which I’m quite happy with.

For premium subscribers, hints and two more bonus puzzles are below.