(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
Besides the standard Arrow Sudoku rules, in this grid there must be …/even/odd/… alternation in each cell from the bulb to the tip of the arrow.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Not an Arrow Sudoku

Author/Opus: This is the 121st 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). 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. Also, along each arrow shape, the numbers (including the circled cell) alternate in parity. (For instance, 9 = 2 + 7 and 9 = 4 + 3 + 2 are valid sequences, but 9 = 7 + 2 and 9 = 1 + 3 + 5 are not.)

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

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:13, 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 other Arrow Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Arrow Sudoku to get started on. More Arrow Sudoku puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store.

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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

[Editor’s Note / context: For those looking for more puzzles here besides Sudoku, we still don’t have new plans for this year. We need more focus on the large efforts we have underway and in general that still means on Sudoku and staying healthy until we can grow the team. But as editors, we too miss the unexpected submissions that surprise and delight.]
[Now you can’t just commission a “museum series” of unforgettable grids, but we were delighted by what happened here. A few months ago Thomas shared a photo (far below) he takes every time he visits the Philadelphia Museum of Art, thinking this grid by Mondrian will always deserve a puzzle when he can get to it. Without expectation of anything appearing, Martin delivered a tremendous fit for the grid, that used its elements fully, that added its own theme with just three kinds of givens that left us a bit shocked. We’re pleased to share now as a bonus for all to enjoy.]

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or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use the tab key to alternate between shading and number entry modes)

Author/Opus: This is the 18th puzzle from guest contributor Martin Ender.

Rules: Label some cells with numbers to form a single connected group of labeled cells; no gridpoint is entirely surrounded by numbered cells. Each bold region must contain at least one labeled cell. Each number (including any given numbers) must equal the total count of labeled cells in that region. Two cells containing the same number may not share a thick border.

Difficulty: 4 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 10:00, Master = 25:00, Expert = 50:00

Solution: PDF and solving animation.

Note: Follow this link for Nanro puzzles on this website and this link for variations on Nanro puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Nanro Puzzles to get started on. More Nanro puzzles can be found in A Number o’ Nanro by Prasanna Seshadri.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our General Blog Puzzle Discussion on the GMPuzzles Discord.

(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
Today’s Thermos may be Slow, but you don’t have to be overly cautious. Just remember that thermo digits can repeat in this variant!

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Theme: Good Grief

Author/Opus: This is the 96th puzzle from Philip Newman, 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). Some thermometer shapes are in the grid; numbers must either increase or stay the same in each cell going from the round bulb to the flat end. (For instance, a thermometer might contain the sequence 233577888 in that order.)

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 7:30; One party hat (🥳): 15:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: Marcie-an Mansourasaurus.

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:36, 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 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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

(This post is part of: “A Story of Self-setting Sudoku”.)
(Prompt 1): Dr. Sudoku: You are an expert Sudoku maker who can do almost anything with Sudoku. Design a Thermo-Sudoku with L, L, M in boxes 1, 2, and 3, and then “OR” somehow in the middle. Then “NO” somehow in box 7 and 8 and 9 at the bottom.
(Prompt 2): [Redacted but it talks about The Final Boss? and highlighting a favorite memory.]
(Prompt 3): Instead of givens, could we add a white dot (or two = symmetry!?!) that means numbers are consecutive when in adjacent cells. The audience / algorithm does not seem to like givens.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: LLM or NO?

Author/Opus: This is the 24th puzzle from “Dr. Sudoku”, our AI-powered puzzle engine pushing the limits of sudoku intelligence.

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 thermometer shapes are in the grid; numbers must be strictly increasing from the round bulb to the flat end. If a white circle is given between two adjacent cells, then the two numbers in those cells must differ by 1. Pairs of cells without circles can have any relationship.

Solution: PDF

Note: 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 Twelve Months of Sudoku? post on the GMPuzzles Discord. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

Special Editor’s note: To try to replicate whatever the “Cracking the Cryptic test” is, we turned off all human playtesting of this puzzle. This is the first time we’ve only let machine processes say there is nothing “too hard” to this puzzle and out of the range of what we have published before. So time estimates are impossible to share but it has a credible answer if our analytics are to be believed. But it is probably fairly hard and you’ll want some Sudoku skills and good notation and all that. To confirm: however you think the puzzle was constructed, no one that breathes oxygen has ever solved this puzzle and no pencils or paper were injured in the creation of this puzzle or post. Showing we respect other forms of carbon might matter to silicon which sits higher than carbon in some projections of the periodic table. We’re still confident it belongs here in our gallery of masterpieces and that you can (fairly) solve it. Even if those two dots are a bit bothersome. Tweaking with more humans in the loop could still make this perfect which is what we would do for a proper puzzle post.

more from Thomas

(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
Beware, some of these thermometers have to go a little slower than usual with values not changing between cells. But once you warm up to that style of thinking, you should be cooking with GAS.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Slow Solvers Playing

Author/Opus: This is the 108th 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). Some thermometer shapes are in the grid; numbers must either increase or stay the same in each cell going from the round bulb to the flat end. (For instance, a thermometer might contain the sequence 233577888 in that order.)

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

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:43, 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 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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
In this Double Arrow variation, the sum of the numbers on each line equals the sum of the numbers in the bounding circles. That makes the math trickier, but this GAS version should still be an approachable way to try this variation.

PDF

or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Kaboom!

Author/Opus: This is the 91st 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). The numbers along each path must sum to the same total as the two numbers in the bulbs at the ends of the path.

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

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:09, 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 Arrow Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Arrow Sudoku to get started on. More Arrow Sudoku puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store.

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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
This Killer Sudoku variation requires you to split the lines into subsections or “cages” as you’d typically see to get all the summation constraints needed to solve the grid. The idea for this variation choice came from a donation, so you can thank Malrog in various ways for the puzzle.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Blame Malrog

Author/Opus: This is the 72nd puzzle from Philip Newman, 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, divide each line into subsections so that each cell on the line belongs to exactly one subsection, and each subsection contains exactly one number clue. Each subsection acts as a Killer cage: values in a subsection cannot repeat and must sum to the total given by that subsection’s number clue. (Numbers *can* repeat on a line if allowed by other rules, as long as those numbers are in different subsections.)

GAS Time Standards (highlight to view): Two party hats (🎩🥳): 10:00; One party hat (🥳): 20:00. All other solvers earn a 🦕: Novel Nanotyrannus… to the tune of “Modern Major General” (https://youtube.com/shorts/ctsGNbMkVSM).

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 4:54, 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 Killer Sudoku and this link for classic Sudoku. More Killer Sudoku puzzles can be found in Killer Sudoku by Serkan Yürekli.

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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
Today’s Outside Sudoku variation has a twist — the clues refer to the diagonals and show the first 3 positions in those directions.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Author/Opus: This is the 69th 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). Clues outside the grid give numbers that must appear in the first three cells as seen from the direction of the clue.

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

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 4:26, 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 Outside Sudoku puzzles. More Outside Sudoku puzzles can be found in Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 4.

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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
As another holiday approaches, enjoy this two for one special from Bill Murphy where two Sudoku grids overlap in four of their regions.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Author/Opus: This is the 67th puzzle from Bill Murphy, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: This puzzle contains two overlapping 9×9 classic Sudoku grids that will share the same numbers in the overlapping spaces. Insert a number from 1 to 9 into each cell so that no number repeats in any row, column, or bold region of either Sudoku grid.

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

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 3:19, 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 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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.

(This post is part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) series.)
In this “Two-Variant Tango”, Arrow and Consecutive Pairs clues are working closely together to set up a fun logical dance.

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or solve online (using SudokuPad)

Theme: Two-Variant Tango

Author/Opus: This is the 85th puzzle from Clover, part of the Genuinely Approachable Sudoku (GAS) team.

Rules: Standard Arrow 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 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. Also, if a white circle is given between two adjacent cells, then the two numbers in those cells must differ by 1. Pairs of cells without circles can have any relationship.

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

Thomas Hits the GAS (highlight to view): 2:05, 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 Arrow Sudoku. Follow this link for Consecutive Pairs Sudoku puzzles on this website. If you are new to these puzzle types, here are our easiest Arrow Sudoku and easiest Consecutive Pairs Sudoku to get started on. More Arrow Sudoku puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store and more Consecutive Pairs Sudoku puzzles can be found in these books.

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. Not a member of the Discord? Click this link for basic access.