DotA Killer 1 (Shadow Shaman) -6/6 Difficulty-

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DotA Killer 1 (Shadow Shaman) -6/6 Difficulty-

Postby h3lix » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:08 am

I've recently been obsessed with an online game called DotA (Defense of the Ancients), which is based on Warcraft III.
In this game, you can be one of 89 types of heroes (as of now) and control only that hero throughout the entire game.

There are some awesome and creative hero ideas in the game and I got the idea to make killer sudoku puzzles about my favorites, with the rules/mechanisms of the puzzle based on the hero's abilities.

Basically, this puzzle (series?:)) will be mashup killer sudoku.

The first one is Rhasta, the Shadow Shaman.
The main diagonals (grey lines) are also 1-9 exclusive.
Image

simpler PNG version:
Image

Abilities:

Forked Lightning
Rhasta forth lightning that strikes multiple targets. All cells being struck (which are backlit in blue) add up to the values in the cells with Shadow Shamans (R3C1 and R9C9).

Voodoo
Rhasta turns an enemy into a sheep for a vital few seconds. This has happened to R4C5; but in the midst of the confusion, Rhasta has lost sight of where the sheep moved! Since sheep move very slowly, it can't have gotten far. The value in R4C5 is in a diagonally adjacent cell.

Shackle
Rhasta binds an enemy in place. Rhasta can't move while he's doing this, so he's pretty much in the same situation (in the absense of any allies). The two cells bound by a shackle (R2C5 and R3C9) have the same value.

Mass Serpent Ward
Rhasta's ultimate spell creates a cluster of serpent wards, which look like snakes coming out of the ground to spit poison at nearby enemies. All of the cells with serpent wards on them (denoted by a small orange icon or a grey background in the png version) have different values. (Since there are 9, this forms an extra group).


Me solving it by hand and JcBonsai's JSudoku (java) program verify this puzzle has a unique solution.

This puzzle is definitely INSANE (6/6 Difficulty for those not familiar with PerfectSudoku), but not quite RUUDICULOUS (7/6 Difficulty) since I could solve it by hand without computer assistance.
h3lix
 
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Joined: 04 December 2006

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