Sunday Surprise: US Team shirt puzzle by Thomas Snyder
Best of luck and skill to all competitors in Kraków, Poland this week at the World Sudoku and Puzzle Championships (WSPC).
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: US Team for 2022 World Sudoku and Puzzle Championships
Author/Opus: This is the 424th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.
Rules: This puzzle from the US team t-shirts for the world championships is originally being released in an “instructionless” mode. It combines a common sudoku variation and a common puzzle type. More info is now available below.
Identity of the two rule sets: (highlight to view): This puzzle combines Thermo-Sudoku and Skyscraper styles. The combination of this style with no givens was first constructed by Thomas Snyder for the 2013 United States Puzzle Championship.
Solution: PDF; the puzzle was featured in a Cracking the Cryptic solving video here.
Took 30:40 to solve it. Fun puzzle; it helped that I found it pretty straightforward to guess what the ruleset had to be.
One word: wow!
Very creative ruleset. Solved, but, admittedly, with great difficulty and a couple of bifurcations
Took me 40 minutes and that was with just going with my initial assumption of what the rules must be and being correct. Now I kind of want to see what the t-shirt looks like.
The post has now been updated with two shots showing the front and back.
38:05, very nice puzzle ! Guessed the rules at first glance, confirmed by upper left corner spot !