Thomas Snyder (aka Dr. Sudoku) is a two-time World Sudoku Champion and five-time US Puzzle Champion, as well as the author of several books of puzzles. His puzzles are hand-crafted, with artistic themes, serving as a kind of “cure for the common sudoku.” Each week he posts a new puzzle on his blog, The Art of Puzzles. This week’s prescription offers up a Numberlink variation, where the number of turns you take makes all the difference.
I created a Numberlink variation, Turning Points, for my 20/10 Puzzle Decathlon competition last year which ended up being the highest-rated puzzle on the test. This was a bit of a surprise to me initially, as it was one of the last ideas I put together and didn't necessarily have all of the polish of some of the other puzzles, but I think solvers appreciated how the new constraints created a fairly new feel for the familiar "connect the numbers" path puzzle. This week seemed a perfect time to revisit that idea with another challenge, which is probably on the easy side as far as my weekly prescriptions go. Enjoy!
Rules: Draw paths that connect each pair of numbers, with every cell in the grid used in exactly one path. There must be exactly N turns in the path connecting each number N.
