From the Foxger’s Den #56: Skyscrapers-X

Skyscrapers by Grant Fikes

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

This is a “Franken-Friday” puzzle variation.

Theme: Logical

Rules: Standard Skyscrapers rules. Also, the digits do not repeat along the two main diagonals.

Answer String: Enter the 3rd row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 4th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:30, Master = 5:15, Expert = 10:30

Solution: PDF

  • Aaron Chan says:

    Oh how I badly failed at solving this puzzle. I didn’t even make the expert time. The diagonals messed me up bad.

  • Jack Nino says:

    I definitely missed something after the initial obvious steps and had to resort to guessing. After that it was pretty easy. So whatever that one step was was a doozy.

    • Aaron Chan says:

      As I recall there’s something you do with the 3’s. If you list out the possible positions, you will realize that there’s 1 place where putting a 3 there will force two 3’s on the diagonal, as well as another place where putting a 3 there will force zero 3’s on the diagonal. Eliminating those places allows you to put more 3’s on the board.

      • Aaron Chan says:

        Wait, that was the 5’s, not 3’s. Listing out the 3’s position afterwards gets me into some weird X-wing like thing with one of the diagonals, giving a digit on R1C5. Then, I listed out the position of the 1’s to force R2C6. The rest is then easy.

        If there’s a really clean way of doing this without any guessing or advanced tactics, I would like to know myself.

        • hagriddler says:

          Same here, I found the solution with a lot of guesswork, would like to know if there is a neat solve path

        • Rob says:

          After finding R1C5, another option: 4 in R2C5 forces a 2 in both R1C4 and R1C6 (via skyscraper clue and via diagonal). Then you can eliminate 1 from R2C2, and from there it’s smooth.

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