Killer Cages are common in variant puzzles, but I cut my teeth on puzzles in which all 81 cells belonged to a cage.
But times have changed, so when I create Killer Sudoku puzzles, I can’t help but leave some of the cages without totals. One might ask what separate that from a puzzle that just leaves those cells empty. My answer to that is… look at the pretty colors!
The rule: Digits in cages do not repeat, and sum to the total in the top-left corner of the cage, if given. If no total is given, digits just do not repeat.
I really love these “fully-caged” puzzles. Some day I think I could publish one or two of these a week and still enjoy the process. I mean, I do have to pick a color for the untotaled cages, but if I did more of these, I’d just cycle through a short list, repeating colors. And sometimes a puzzle could have a bare minimum number of totaled cages, unlike this one, which has a few more than absolutely necessary–although not many more.
I’ve solved more than 1200 computer-generated Killer Sudoku puzzles on a daily site, but there’s a definite sameness to them. Just having some cages without totals makes these puzzles different, and I enjoy each one as much as a dozen on the daily site.
I would say that, though, wouldn’t I?
Not very fun fact: The very day I created this puzzle, a few hours later, my daughter was in a traffic collision that ended up relying on her comprehensive car insurance coverage to resolve. Everybody was fine, though only one car drove away from the scene. And no, she didn’t know I’d given this puzzle this name. Just an un-lucky coincidence.
Sometimes I think I should create a separate tag for puzzles so full of cages there’s no other constraint. Like Predator 6, and this one. If I ever do, I should update this text, since it will no longer apply.
Update: It was finally time. The “Killer Cages” tag applies to all puzzles with cages, while the new “Killer Sudoku” tag now applies to puzzles with all cages.
It’s a killer of killers. Like the animated movie. Which is the sixth movie in the series! I think I’ve missed a few. But not that one! It’s great. I remember the first two, and this one. Oh, and Prey! That was great, too.
The coloring is cosmetic. More or less.