Renban

Overlapping grids are interesting, but I thought: why always align on thick region borders? What if I split them offset? The answer is: it is a much more difficult puzzle to set, but makes solving more interesting. Trivia: When I set my normal logical auto-solver to the settings I like to use for testing, it gets “stuck” at one particular step. So if you solve the puzzle without using the walkthrough, you’ve done a better job than my logical auto-solver! Even more trivial: The renban lines are almost perfectly symmetrical, but there are two differences.

Some lines force digits to be far apart, while other lines force them to be close together. They only interact at a single point.

Sometimes the most difficult part of solving a puzzle is deciding which colors to use. Do you color pairs, individual digits, or high/low? I use yellow for low and sky blue for high, personally This is a hint that coloring will be helpful with this puzzle, and possibly more than one kind!

Every digit on every renban line go into its own separate compartment, since these short renban lines all fit entirely within… oh, there are a couple of long lines too. Maybe they’re important.

It’s a big one, and it’s anchored by Gravity Cages at the bottom. While these cages don’t directly affect anything else in the puzzle, I like to imagine they’ll combine to form a black hole, pulling everything in all four grids into a single cell.

In testing, this puzzle provoked some debate. This grid can seem quite complicated, but those “renban arrows” are far more limiting than they might first appear.

Irish pub cuisine, or a Gattai-3 Sudoku puzzle? You decide!

Three of these things belong together / three of these things are kind of the same // Can you guess which one of these doesn’t belong here? / Now it’s time to play our game // It’s time to play our game

Ain’t that a renban line / for you and me // Ain’t that a renban line / something to see // Ain’t that a renban line / the puzzle is free // Little pink houses for you and me (with apologies to Mr. Mellencamp)

These are not normal quadruples clues; these are specifically-ordered quadruples clues. This is the fourth of four puzzles exploring using Fog of War.