For December’s puzzle, you were asked to figure out which numbers to place on the sides of a six-sided die that would allow it to “legally” travel from the bottom-left to the top-right squares in the grid.

The only labeling of the die that permits such a route is: −3, 9, 5, −9, 7, 9. And the only legal path that successfully travels from the yellow square to the blue square is outlined above. The sum of the unvisited squares (shaded in orange, above) is 1935.

(Of interest, note in the upper grid the placement of the die after the 26th move. Several entries claimed that a path existed through the 452 immediately north of the 317. But to move to that cell would cause the score to increase by 27×9, which is not a legal move. The only legal move is to the eastern 452, as 452 = 317 + 27×5.)

Congrats to those of you who successfully navigated the die area!