Gridlexic

Here is a new puzzle that was developed by a team I've been working with: www.gridlexic.com. I would like to outline here, by way of an example, what is required to solve this puzzle.

This puzzle is essentially a variation of sudoku. A sudoku solution is a 9x9 array of numbers; a gridlexic solution is a 5x5 array of letters. In both puzzles, one starts with some small subset of the array already filled in, e.g.

A gridlexic solution will have 5 distinct letters in the solution. The puzzle presents 9 possible letters. Part of solving the puzzle is to figure out which 5 are in the solution, and which 4 are to be left out. Of course, if a letter is in the initial set of clues, then it will certainly be in the solution!

Each of the 5 solution letters must occur exactly once in each row, column, and outlined sector. In sudoku, the sectors are 3x3 rectangles. In gridlexic, they are irregularly shaped regions containing 5 cells. In addition to these sudoku-like rules, the letters must form words in the horizontal or vertical highlighted regions. In this example puzzle there is one vertical word with 4 letters, and one horizontal word with 4 letters. These words overlap at one cell.

Each of the 5 distinct letters in the solution will occur in at least one of the words in the solution.

Here is the solution to this example puzzle:

Each row has exactly one occurrence of each of the 5 letters in the solution, e.g.:

Each column has exactly one occurrence of each of the 5 letters in the solution, e.g.:

Each sector has exactly one occurrence of each of the 5 letters in the solution, e.g.:

The vertical highlighted cells form a word:

The horizontal highlighted cells form a word:

We certainly hope it is a fun puzzle to play!