KiMo Sudoku & Puzzles -	DJ Ape's Daily Killer | Background | Rules | Comment | KiMo Challenge | KiMo Solutions | 1 | S2 | S3 | 2A | 3 | 4 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 1011 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 32 | 33 (NEW) | 34 (NEW) Double KiMo 1 | Double KiMo 2 | Double KiMo 3
DG Killer/KiMo	Explanation | Background | DG Killer 1 | DG Killer 2 | DG KiMo 3 | DG KiMo 4 | DG KiMo 5 | DG KiMo 6 DG KiMo 7

Comment

The twenty+ puzzles loaded are hopefully a broad enough set to allow solvers to both develop their solving techniques and take a view on this puzzle format.

My views (informed by Udosuk’s comments) are:

• If the killer is unique the KiMo is unique - certainly the probability of an individual unique killer having multiple KiMo solutions is very low I would estimate 10^-6 and down - hence finding one would be interesting in itself. Given that the simple four doublet switch does not work any duplicate would need to consist of large (3,4,5,6) cages, as doublets tie it down too much. Hence any non T&E KiMo will be unique, even if duplication is possible in general.
• It is all about innies and outies - there are no restricted cage-sums to help (all KiMo cage-sums contain almost the same number of combinations) where a cage-sum fixes the cage total (8/2, 9/2, 10/2, 11/2, 12/2 and 15/3) they are the ones with the largest number of combinations anyway.
• Doublets dominate - anything larger than a triplet has to be split to be of use.
• While the KiMo is more difficult than the underlying killer, if the killer is based on innies and outies the increase in difficulty will be small but is often enough to turn a boring TiKi into a relatively interesting KiMo. Where the killer is based on restricted combos or numerical relationships across cages the KiMo will be significantly more difficult perhaps impossible without major T&E.
• When creating a KiMo it is easy to escalate the difficulty beyond "human solvability".
• When converting killers: almost all TiKis are solvable without T&E, most DJApe Easies are solvable and some Cools.

The benefit of KiMos (over killers) is that they are harder, the disadvantage is that the range of solutions is narrower as they easily become “unsolvable”.

HATMAN
Comments at DJApe's forum: http://www.djape.net/sudoku/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15 or if appropriate contact me at hatman@diceboard.co.uk