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Finished this puzzle last night. I believe this is the first fully non-consecutive puzzle I have completed, although I have completed partially non-consecutive puzzles (with dividing lines) before. Once I grasped the concept of a fully non-consecutive, it was pretty easy, but an enjoyable puzzle and a nice change of pace, nonetheless.

This puzzle has multiple solutions (possibly 000's) . Andrew Stuart's solver stopped at 500.

Leren

Leren wrote:This puzzle has multiple solutions (possibly 000's) . Andrew Stuart's solver stopped at 500

No, it doesn't. It's a non-consecutive, meaning that it's a standard puzzle with the added constraint that no adjacent (horizontal/vertical) digits may be consecutive.

With the non-consecutive constraint added the solution becomes trivial, with just singles and the non-consecutive constraint rule being required. The solution is :

Code: Select all

*-----------------------------------*
| 5  7  1   | 3  6  2   | 9  4  8   |
| 2  4  8   | 5  9  7   | 1  6  3   |
| 6  9  3   | 8  4  1   | 7  2  5   |
|-----------+-----------+-----------|
| 1  6  9   | 4  2  8   | 3  5  7   |
| 8  2  4   | 7  5  3   | 6  1  9   |
| 3  5  7   | 9  1  6   | 4  8  2   |
|-----------+-----------+-----------|
| 9  1  5   | 2  7  4   | 8  3  6   |
| 4  8  2   | 6  3  9   | 5  7  1   |
| 7  3  6   | 1  8  5   | 2  9  4   |
*-----------------------------------*

Leren

Leren wrote:With the non-consecutive constraint added the solution becomes trivial, with just singles and the non-consecutive constraint rule being required.

As I said, it's a pretty easy puzzle, but minding the non-consecutives gave it some additional interest.

Are the givens required to be non-consecutive, too? That is, if somebody came up with a "non-consecutive" where the givens violated non-consecutivity, would everybody scream and shout and boo and hiss?

(Leave it to me to ask a question like this.)

Bill Smythe

Smythe Dakota wrote:Are the givens required to be non-consecutive, too? That is, if somebody came up with a "non-consecutive" where the givens violated non-consecutivity, would everybody scream and shout and boo and hiss?

It depends on whether the puzzle is supposed to be fully non-consecutive or only partially non-consecutive. A puzzle can't legitimately be called fully non-consecutive if some of the givens are consecutive. However, a partially non-consecutive puzzle has cell borders that are marked as non-consecutive, while all other adjoining cells, including givens, can be consecutive.

Aw, darn. So you expect the puzzle maker to follow the same rules as the puzzle solver.

Bill Smythe

Smythe Dakota wrote:Aw, darn. So you expect the puzzle maker to follow the same rules as the puzzle solver.

LOL! Of course! Same reason that a puzzle with multiple solutions is invalid.

Sure, but a puzzle where the givens are allowed to be consecutive, but not the fill-ins, could still be a valid puzzle, in that (for example) there should be only one solution.

It wouldn't affect the validity of the puzzle (as long as the rules are known to all), but as I said before it might make some people boo and hiss.

I suppose such a puzzle should also specify whether a given and an adjacent non-given are allowed to be consecutive.

Bill Smythe

Bill

Can I clarify, do you mean:

1 The givens can be consecutive with each other but all other cells must be non-consecutive with each other and the givens: this is just a C-NC puzzle and valid if you put thick black lines between your consecutive givens; or

2 The givens can be consecutive with each other and any adjacent cell but all other cells must be non-consecutive: this would be different. I'll play around with it and see if anything usable comes out (I can't see a good way of using JSudoku to assist).

Maurice

enxio

I forgot I'd promised you a medium level NC. I try and do one and post it here.
The hard one (JS uses 7 small fishes and 5 medium NC moves) I posted on the assassin site was (note it is X and Non-Consecutive):

Vanilla X NC1


JS Code:
.....4..........9..4.......4...1..........7.11...6.....5..............6......2...
Need to add NC and it is X

Solution:
863924175
517386492
249751638
492517386
638249751
175863924
751638249
924175863
386492517

HATMAN wrote:I forgot I'd promised you a medium level NC. I try and do one and post it here.
The hard one (JS uses 7 small fishes and 5 medium NC moves) I posted on the assassin site was (note it is X and Non-Consecutive)

Thank you so much, Maurice! This will hopefully be a good diversion when I need a study break this week.

Enxio: here is a puzzle (one solution) with four levels of increasing difficulty.

Vanilla X NC 5 E



Vanilla X NC 5 B



Vanilla X NC 5 A



Vanilla X NC 5



Solution:
935714862
682539417
417286935
174628359
826953174
359471628
593147286
268395741
741862593