Puzzle 372 (Sudoku) [Star]

This is a Sudoku puzzle, with a twist. Only the numbers 1 to 7 are used in this puzzle, and two spaces in each row, column, and box will not have numbers. Those spaces contain stars instead. Two cells containing stars may not be adjacent, not even diagonally.

Puzzle 372

(Click for larger size)

If I ever do this variation again I’ll probably do irregular regions and maybe add an extra row or column. A 9 by 9 star battle with those regions just doesn’t have enough solutions for these to stay interesting.

Puzzle 349 (Sudoku)

This is a Sudoku puzzle.

Puzzle 349

(Click for larger size)

Long-time readers might remember the days when puzzle 50n+49 was always some sort of silly joke, with 199 probably being the best example. At first appearance, this might look like a continuation of that, but it isn’t. I did just in fact post a classic Sudoku. Actually I’ve made a few of these already as part of improving my solving. This is the first one that I even considered publishing.

As a final note, the difficulty is probably a little off from Friday. This one is probably around a nikoli Hard, which is more typical for Wednesday on this blog. My reasoning is that classic Sudoku tend to have a difficulty ceiling before guessing becomes the best strategy, and a typical Friday of mine would easily break that threshold.