Back Story
One December a few years back, staffing at the North Pole was short. Santa
discreetly advertised for help in a few northern cities, and the only candidate
to answer the ad was one Sylvester O. Hollownoggin from Boise. Though his lack
of experience was a red flag (not to mention his surname), Santa desperately
needed an elf. So Syl was hired.
Now, it is not a well-known fact that Santa makes a test run every year. Good
thing, because that year it was a disaster. For starters, Syl packed all the
toys into crates, stenciling single letters from his nickname—IDAHO SYL—on each crate so he’d
remember what was inside. And, oh yeah, he neglected to securely fasten the
cargo door on the sleigh.
Mid-flight, over the Arctic Sea, the hatch swung open and four dozen crates
tumbled out. Luckily, they all landed on a fog-covered iceberg.
The Puzzle
The diagram below is the iceberg. It is divided into six regions and
forty-eight hexagons. Each hex is to contain one crate—one of the letters
in IDAHO SYL—but some can't be seen
through the fog. No letter will be repeated within a region, nor will any be
repeated in any row. There are horizontal rows , as well as slanted rows in two
directions.
When completed, the circled hexes will spell out a word or phrase suitable for
the season.
Elaboration
This is a sudoku variation. It uses a grid of hexagons instead of a square
grid. Instead of nine boxes each with nine squares, we have six irregular
regions with eight hexes each.
There are three directions for lines instead of the usual two, and most of the
rows have fewer than eight hexes.
The completed puzzle will reveal a hidden message in the center row.
Hints:
Top row
Bottom row
Solution
(don’t look if you don’t want to see it!)
Step-by-step solution
Cover art from the physical card
