Thanks, michaele, for the puzzle and for your effort . The idea is very original and the puzzle very amused.

However, I am sorry, but if I am right, the solution is not unique, I have found 2 solutions at least (not spending much time) and possibly there are more in my opinion.

In addition to this, after applying analysis you find that the 11 small cages have a unique configuration as follows: "72x" = [3,3,8], "6+" = [2,4], "5x" = [1,5], "4x" = [1,1,4], "9x" = [1,3,3], "9+" = [2,2,5], "14+" = [4,5,5], "10+" = [1,2,3,4], "72x" = [2,6,6], "20x" = [1,4,5] and "4+" = [1,3], you conclude that the total sum of these cages (31 cells) is 100. Consequently, the big cage "177+" (with 33 cells) must have a sum of 288 - 100 = 188 and not 177 (since 288 = 8 x 36 is the total sum of the puzzle).

Perhaps it would be interesting that Patrick tests this puzzle with the software to verify unicity, … .

It's on my list, the software still has a problem with the very large cage
(probably just some space allocation issue).

You left out the 11+ cage, that would bring the total of the small cages to 111, leaving 177 for the large cage.

I think there is only one solution, but I could be wrong, I created this puzzle very quickly, and will confess that I did not take as much time checking it as I usually would. If you can send me two solutions I would be interested to figure out what I did wrong. If I have made a mistake I will make some adjustments and try again.

That was cool. I enjoyed it.

One thing about a cage that big is that I never used the fact that it was +177 to solve the puzzle; by the time that information would have become helpful I was well on toward completion and was just eliminating options using the basic "each number appears only once in each row/column" rule. That reminded me of a previous thread where someone smarter than me was wondering about how much information was necessary to solve a puzzle. In the current case, all the elements of that huge cage could be thought of as 'uncaged'.

Again, very cool.

Thank you jack.

It was an interesting exercise in creating a very large cage, but the puzzle is far too easy.

I will try creating another puzzle with a large cage, and I will try to make the large cage more significant to the solving method.

For what it's worth, I think the puzzle has only one valid solution But I don't have time to revisit it right now

You are right, and also bram with respect to the fact that the puzzle has only one solution.

I apologize, I solved the puzzle without the cage 11 +, ... , I copied it to paper and simply did not draw that cage (I must be incubating some virus, ... ).
The solution is unique of course and quickly obtained straight forward.
And, as jaek comments, the information 177+ is irrelevant, so a no-op cage is also valid, that is, simply "177", as well as the cages "11+" and "10+" ("11" or "10" are also valid, since in these cases the operator must be an addition necessarily), and of course both "72" cages, etc..

Thanks.

Exactly

Well, it's often frustrating when a large puzzle includes several large cages for which only the sums are given because those large sums tend to be unhelpful or only helpful in a tedious way
Now what makes your puzzle stand out is precisely that it remains very entertaining in spite of taking that otherwise annoying feature to extremes
As jaek has already stated, the trick is to think of the numbers in the humongous cage as "uncaged" and start solving that part of the puzzle in a sudoku-like manner when you have enough information to do so from solving the other cages

Some people have mentioned that the large cage can be ignored and the puzzle can still be solved. I think that is a big problem with my puzzle, if the point of interest for the puzzle is the large cage then that cage should participate in the puzzle solving. So I have done a re-jig and I now think it is a better puzzle and the large cage plays a part in finding a solution. It should be more difficult to solve (if you ignore the previous version).

I agree on both counts: The new version is (even) better than the original one and also more challenging. My recommendation to other puzzlers is to first solve the original version (which is still a great puzzle, and quite relaxing) and then the new one (without peeking at the original or its solution). Thanks a lot, michaele

(Spoiler warning : Discussion of solution to new version follows.)

In the new version it's quite simple and straightforward to fill in the 5+ cage, to determine which numbers belong in the 18x cage (and fill in its 1s) and then (using the sum requirement of the colossal cage) to determine which numbers belong in the 288x cage (and fill in its lower cell and the 6+ and 4+ cages)
Then comes a more challenging bit of analysis, which eluded me for some time and which I shouldn't really be revealing here so as to not completely spoil the puzzle I was frustrated at first and elated when I finally got it.
A hint if you're stuck at this stage: By considering the (already determined) combination of numbers in the 18x cage along with the possible combinations in th 7+ and 9+ cages, it's possible to determine which numbers belong in the 18+ cage and then to fill in the two leftmost columns along with the aforementioned cages After that the rest is just sudoku (like in the original version).