Wednesday, 2 February 2022

Freddie Hand

The pentominoes are uprising. Since Tyrgannus's Pentominous a few months ago, they have been ignored by the GAPP setters, and have finally decided enough is enough!

"Are you certain this is a good idea?" Timid T asks. "Surely there's another way?"
"Couldn't we make some sort of compromise? Like, request the setters to sometimes use givens in pentominos shapes," Peacemaker P begs.
"No", Ferocious F snaps, with a determined look in his eyes. "We must go ahead. This is the only way to make our presence felt."

"Our first target: slitherlink."

Oh no! The pentominoes have defeated us, and have occupied the puzzle. Now it's been transformed into a FiveCells. Let's just be thankful that we didn't have to fend off a monomino invasion...

Before we jump into the rules, I want to say that this genre may be a tricky one to get your head around. As such, I would recommend reading the "notes for solving" carefully before jumping into the puzzle (unless you're already a FiveCells wizard, that is!)

Rules: Divide the grid into regions of 5 orthogonally connected cells. (i.e. pentominoes). Clued cells must have the indicated number of region borders or grid borders surrounding them. For clarification, P pentominoes cannot have internal borders.

Example, taken from the puzz.link rules page (puzzlink): https://tinyurl.com/ycswa6j9

NOTES FOR SOLVING

-You can draw auxiliary connecting lines by dragging between the centres of cells. While these do not have to be drawn for the checker to trigger, they are very helpful for solving.

-"The FiveCells secret" 🕵️‍♂️: A clue of size n is adjacent to exactly 4-n cells within its region.

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 3:15 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 9:00 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Quintuple Quetzal 🐦

Puzzle (puzzlink): https://tinyurl.com/7esffbwy