Philip Newman gained early attention in the Sudoku world from the very interesting yet very hard classic puzzle Tatooine Sunset. The basic Tatooine grid geometry has been explored many more times with many kinds of solving paths, including in today’s Genuinely Approachable Sudoku.

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

Theme: Tatooine Thursday?

Author/Opus: This is the 5th puzzle from Philip Newman, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 8:00; One party hat (🥳): 20:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: Quick Qaikshaheen.

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:24, with SudokuPad replay file shared as a download for now (requires loading via settings menu with improvements expected before people should use this regularly).

Solution: PDF; solving video with explanation to be added later from GAS team.

Note: Follow this link for more Genuinely Approachable Sudoku puzzles on this site. Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More Sudoku including variations can be found in these books in our e-store. Also, visit this page to purchase all of the puzzles from the 16th World Sudoku Championship including classic Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Daily GAS discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

Today’s Genuinely Approachable Sudoku by Bill Murphy is a minor variation of a favorite style here at GMPuzzles: Outside Sudoku. Can you place all the numbers now that the outside clues refer to the second, third, or fourth cells in that direction?

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Author/Opus: This is the 2nd puzzle from Bill Murphy, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: Variation of Outside Sudoku rules. Standard Sudoku rules. Insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region. Some numbers are given outside the grid. These numbers must appear in the second, third, or fourth cell in the corresponding direction.

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 8:00; One party hat (🥳): 15:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: empathetic Ekrixinatosaurus.

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:35, with SudokuPad replay file shared as a download for now (requires loading via settings menu with improvements expected before people should use this regularly).

Solution: PDF; solving video with explanation to be added later from GAS team.

Note: Follow this link for more Genuinely Approachable Sudoku puzzles on this site. Follow this link for other less common variations of Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Daily GAS discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

Some people have asked if the Sudoku wedding is a lie. How can it be, we’ve prepared cake!

PDF

Potentially to be adapted to SudokuPad, but cake is better together in person.

Author/Opus: This is the 579th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Instructions:
1.) If you are a relatively new intelligence, and are not tall enough to reach most places above the ground, prove your primary education by telling us the [ENTRY].
2.) If you are now an older intelligence, have completed secondary education and solved lots of puzzles, then please take a bigger look at the image and show us [GRID]. Adjacent to any square filled wholly with a color AND with a number that rhymes with that color in English, there must be two other numbers whose product is the square of the colored square number.
3.) If you are now an advanced (perhaps artificial) intelligence, please limit your special powers to just seeing black, violet, and ultraviolet. Interpret what you see to show us [GRID].
4.) If you are an actually intelligent human who wants a good puzzle but doesn’t want to use a computer or be a [🐰🥚], skip step (3) but still consider it. Seeing the world in more than black and white but not down about the past, solve this P = NP starting with NP, as in Number Place. As NP was borrowed, another name might help find the way to [GRID].
5.) What heights you’ve reached. Look around to find P = [PLACE WE BAKED CAKE].

Author’s Note: No matter what the instructions say, I like to think of Layer 1 as basic old number placing, Layer 2 as early sudoku after being borrowed from America, Layer 3 as new tool-assisted designs for better or worse, and Layer Two plus Two and Layer Two plus Two as something blissfully blue, that makes you ask if I am crazy or brilliant. That really matters on who’s asking and who’s in charge.

Note 2: The PDF or PNG versions are the only definitive source at the moment, but future forms may be shared digitally that are appropriate for a few of the early layers once others have made progress.

Can you dash your way around this Sudoku variation by Clover where certain cells must equal the sum of their neighbors?

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Author/Opus: This is the 23rd puzzle from Clover, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules (insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region). If a horizontal dash appears in a cell, the number in that cell is the sum of the numbers to its immediate left and right. If a vertical dash appears in a cell, the number in that cell is the sum of the numbers immediately above and below it.

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 6:30; One party hat (🥳): 12:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: dashing Dreadnoughtus.

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:32, with SudokuPad replay file shared as a download for now (requires loading via settings menu with improvements expected before people should use this regularly).

Solution: PDF and solving video with explanation from GAS team.

Note: Follow this link for more Genuinely Approachable Sudoku puzzles on this site. Follow this link for other less common variations of Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Daily GAS discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

A prior post discussed how I’m getting “married” to Sudoku over this upcoming year, with different ideas for something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. I may eventually tell more of the story of this puzzle that seems to capture all four.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: But I Still Have Things to Say

Author/Opus: This is the 578th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules (insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region). Also, numbers cannot repeat in any cells separated by a chess knight’s move (as shown below). Also, numbers placed into a cell filled wholly or partially with a primary or secondary color cannot rhyme with the name of that color in English.

Note: Follow this link for more atypical things on this site by Thomas Snyder, not only puzzles. A great starting point for atypical things that are mostly puzzles is this Twelve Days of Sudoku framing post.

Today’s post continues our three post introduction to the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku team with a clever Thermo-Sudoku puzzle by Philip Newman highlighting the new GAS + GMP connection.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Granularly Amassable Sudoral

Author/Opus: This is the 4th puzzle from Philip Newman, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: Standard Thermo-Sudoku rules. (Insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region. Some thermometer shapes are in the grid; numbers must be strictly increasing from the round bulb to the flat end.)

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 8:30; One party hat (🥳): 20:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: Overheated Oharasisaurus.

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 3:46, with SudokuPad replay file shared as a download for now (requires loading via settings menu with improvements expected before people should use this regularly).

Solution: PDF; solving video with explanation to be added later from GAS team.

Note: Follow this link for more Genuinely Approachable Sudoku puzzles on this site. Follow this link for more Thermo-Sudoku puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Thermo-Sudoku to get started on. More Thermo-Sudoku puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store. Also, visit this page to purchase all of the puzzles from the 16th World Sudoku Championship including some Thermo-Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Daily GAS discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

Today we continue to introduce the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team here on GMPuzzles with an Anti-Knight Sudoku by Bill Murphy with a nice geometric pattern with four empty rows.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Shut Up

Author/Opus: This is the 1st puzzle from Bill Murphy, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules (insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region). Also, numbers cannot repeat in any cells separated by a chess knight’s move.

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 7:30; One party hat (🥳): 14:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: Twenty Dollar Dahalokely.

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:35, with SudokuPad replay file shared as a download for now (requires loading via settings menu with improvements expected before people should use this regularly).

Solution: PDF and solving video with explanation from GAS team.

Note: Follow this link for more Genuinely Approachable Sudoku puzzles on this site. Follow this link for other less common variations of Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Daily GAS discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

As mentioned earlier today, we’re proud to now be a publication source for the daily Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) puzzle which celebrates the start of its fifth year of posts today. This Up/Down Lines Sudoku comes from Clover, the founder of the series back on June 7th, 2021.

PDF

or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Four Years

Author/Opus: This is the 22nd puzzle from Clover, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules (insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region).

Along each gray line, every number is either greater than all the numbers it is directly connected to, or less than all of the numbers it is directly connected to. (Note that this results in a pattern of high/low/high/low along the length of each line.)

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 7:00; One party hat (🥳): 13:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: grandmaster Graciliraptor.

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 3:20, with SudokuPad replay file shared as a download for now (requires loading via settings menu with improvements expected before people should use this regularly).

Solution: PDF and solving video with explanation from GAS team.

Note: Follow this link for more Genuinely Approachable Sudoku puzzles on this site. Follow this link for other less common variations of Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Daily GAS discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

This is the last of three puzzles today, completing the Finals puzzle set.

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or solve online in Penpa, or also solve online in SudokuPad as a new option (note: highly recommended to turn off “Mark Solved Digits” option if you use that in SudokuPad).

Author/Opus: This is the 21st puzzle from guest contributor Clover.

Rules: This Sudoku does not have a unique solution for the full grid (it actually has a large number of solutions), but there is exactly one cell in which a number can be logically placed that is fixed across all solutions. Find this cell and its unique value.

This puzzle follows Kropki Pairs Sudoku rules, so no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region. If a white circle is given between two adjacent cells, then the two numbers in those cells must differ by 1. If a black circle is given between two adjacent cells, then the two numbers must have a ratio of 2. Pairs of cells without circles can have any relationship.

Time Standards: This competition had 1-point (easy), 2-point (medium), 3-point (hard), or higher value puzzles. This would have been worth 3 points (medium category), roughly 2.5-3 minute target.

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other Just One Cell Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Just One Cell Sudoku Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

This is the second of three Finals puzzles posting today.

PDF

or solve online in Penpa, or also solve online in SudokuPad as a new option (note: highly recommended to turn off “Mark Solved Digits” option if you use that in SudokuPad).

Author/Opus: This is the 20th puzzle from guest contributor Clover.

Rules: This Sudoku does not have a unique solution for the full grid (it actually has a large number of solutions), but there is exactly one cell in which a number can be logically placed that is fixed across all solutions. Find this cell and its unique value.

This puzzle follows Arrow Sudoku rules, so no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region. Some arrow shapes are in the grid; the sum of the numbers along the path of each arrow must equal the number in the circled cell. Numbers can repeat within an arrow shape.

Time Standards: This competition had 1-point (easy), 2-point (medium), 3-point (hard), or higher value puzzles. This would have been worth 2 points (medium category), roughly 1.5-2 minute target.

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other Just One Cell Sudoku.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Just One Cell Sudoku Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.