Sudoku is The Snake Nest by Matyas Martinka, App variant is LINE


Normal sudoku rules apply and some snakes are hiding in the grid. A snake has a one-cell wide path. The head and tail cell of each snake need to be determined. A snake can touch itself diagonally but cannot touch itself orthogonally or revisit any cell twice. The cells not covered by snakes form exactly 8 orthogonally connected areas in the grid, one of each size from 1 cell to 8 cells. These areas are called 'snake eggs'. Each egg of size n contains the digits from 1 to n exactly once. Eggs must not touch orthogonally, but they might touch diagonally. The given digits in the grid indicate the position of the highest number of each snake egg. The snakes must connect to each other to form a single orthogonally connected area of snake cells, where no 2x2 region is covered entirely by snakes. Separate snakes might orthogonally connect anywhere, including the head cells. The head and tail cell of each snake must contain the same digit. (This digit might be different for different snakes.) Digits along the snake are not restricted: they might repeat, and the digit in the snake's head cell might be found elsewhere on the snake.