The challenges in creating these larger puzzles are multiple. I could have created more than four single-grid puzzles in less time than it took to create this one, in part because each change required me to re-solve the puzzle from the start, to be sure I hadn’t broken anything unexpectedly. Still, the satisfaction of a working gattai that also follows the rules I’ve set for myself, it’s worth spending the extra time on one out of every dozen puzzles or so.
There’s a big green rectangle with some weird edges, and it anchors the grid. But there’s this weird rotating line careening wildly across the grid, with very different properties than the rectangle. It grabs a couple of points, but mostly takes its own path. Oh, and also a switch of sorts, a single black dot. I think of it as a circuit, with the peach line representing temporary wiring. But I’ve used that metaphor when naming other puzzles, so it’s time to pick names differently. Note: Some testers considered this a 1 or 1.5 difficulty, while others rated it 2.5 at least!
Some lines force digits to be far apart, while other lines force them to be close together. They only interact at a single point.
More of these combo cages that act as “German Whispers” lines. In this case, some of them are square, and adjacent digits means orthogonally-adjacent, since there’s no way a square would work otherwise. For extra fun, very few of the cages have totals.
These cages are the color of “German Whispers” lines as a reminder that each cage functions as just such a line. Even the two-cell cages function as if they were two-cell green lines. Imagine that they’re green lines, but I’ve helpfully provided the total for all of the digits along the line.
There are eight L shapes in this puzzle. No, I didn’t forget the green ones: two of the peach ones aren’t L-shaped. There are ten lines bent into right angles, but two are bent in a different direction from the others. And I don’t care what anyone says, it’s not an L if the horizontal bit is longer than the vertical bit!
Irish pub cuisine, or a Gattai-3 Sudoku puzzle? You decide!
It might be tempting to try to solve this using only the green lines, with the pair of odd and pair of even cells to close the deal. But let the odd and even cells remind you: this is a quadro puzzle. The 2x2 rule will help!
There’s a given digit for you, and for you, and for you, and… that’s it! I’m all out of given digits. It should be obvious that the puzzle has the digits 2-9, and–oh! Right. Hmm, the puzzle has all the digits, 1-9, I’m just not sure where that other one went. It’s okay, the puzzle is fine. This is fine.
The Christmas season means red and green everywhere, like holly with berries decking halls. Red and green, red and green. Such contrast! Red like stop, green like go. Red like danger, green like success. Like targeting, but successful. Speaking of contrast, red and green are are also the colors of Parity Lines (odd versus even) and German Whisper lines (high versus low).