Championship Chatter – Bonus Thermo-Skyscrapers
As promised, here was the original Thermo-Skyscrapers created for the USPC. I like the visual pattern and tightness of solving path much more, but it was simply too hard to use, particularly before the practice you now have from the one you saw on the USPC from yesterday’s post.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: No given numbers, and full clue cell symmetry
Rules: Standard Skyscrapers rules. Also, as in Thermo-Sudoku, digits must be strictly increasing in all thermometer shapes from round bulb to flat end.
Answer String: Enter the seven digits inside the grid for the 7th row from left to right, followed by a comma, and then the seven digits inside the grid for the 4th column from top to bottom.
Solution: PDF
Nasty. Took me better part of an hour. I almost fell for the qvtvg havdhrarff pbafgenvag ba gur gbc gurezbzrgre.
Gahh… I can see why this one didn’t appear on the test.
16:24, albeit not quite in competition mode since it took me awhile to go with the bifurcation that eventually got me the answer. Time to go back and see what logic I missed…
Definitely can be done without bifurcating. Mind you, it took me quite a bit longer, and I managed to break it on the first attempt. But the second time through it went along smoothly to the solution.
I wasn’t timing myself, but it took me a while. It’s a definite fully logical path from start to finish though.
I did this one on an airplane, so didn’t time myself, but it didn’t feel like it took anywhere near as long as the practice one did. (I guess that makes sense…) Either way, I like this variation.
Took me quite some time because when I thought I was finished I spotted an error and had to start over again…
Very nice puzzle !