Sunday Stumper: TomTom (Cipher) by Serkan Yürekli
This year, we have started to have some extra difficult Sunday Stumpers, about once a month. These will be quite tough puzzles, but with a logical path to be found (and solution videos to help). This fifth Sunday Stumper is a TomTom puzzle with encoded cage clues.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Father’s Day
Author/Opus: This is the 320th puzzle from our managing editor Serkan Yürekli.
Rules: Standard TomTom rules, using the integers 1-9. Also, the letters F, A, T, H, E, R, S, D, Y represent different digits from 0-9. Identify which letters stand for which digits and then solve the TomTom. Multi-digit clues cannot start with a 0. (Note: The /S cage is a division cage with value “S”; the slash sign is used instead of the normal division symbol for aesthetic purposes.)
Difficulty: 5 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 50:00, Master = 1:15:00, Expert = 2:30:00
Solution: PDF; a solution video is also available here.
Note: Follow this link for classic TomTom and this link for TomTom variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest TomTom to get started on. More TomTom puzzles can be found in the TomTom collection, in The Art of Puzzles, and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.
Nice puzzle, very hard. Cool to see the “right” path in the solution video. I got stuck at the crux, missing all of the logic involving gur qn pntr, so instead I did a long bifurcation based on gur inyhr bs u. Made several mistakes, but got there eventually!
Honestly think that this must be one of the very hardest puzzles on the entire site, not because of the actual solving path (which I eventually found on the seventh or eighth attempt) but because, if you make an early mistake, it takes HOURS of brutal logic before it becomes clear that you’ve made an error. So it’s absolutely viciously unforgiving if you miss a trick or a combination. Can’t even bring myself to admit how many hours I’ve spent on this monstrosity.