Wednesday, 6 April 2022

Freddie Hand

If you haven't been living under a rock for the past decade or so, you've probably heard of Candy Crush. You may have also grown frustrated at some of the levels which seem to require incredible luck. Well today's puzzle is the pencil puzzle version of this game (invented by @Prasanna16391 for WPC 2017), but it also brought with it similar feelings of exasperation. The puzzle you see here is in its sixth iteration...

Fortunately the puzzle has now been diligently tested several times, so as much as Candy Crush levels have multiple ways to win, this Candy Crush puzzle should only have a single solution.

Rules: Place a letter from A-D in each empty white cell such that there are never three consecutive cells in a horizontal or vertical line containing the same letter. In the final solution it must be possible to directly 'eliminate' any letter using any one single swap of two letters sharing a side, not considering gravity and chains. Letters are 'eliminated' if they become part of three or more horizontally or vertically consecutive cells containing the same letter. Numbers outside the grid indicate the number of different letters in the corresponding direction.

⚠️ BEWARE ⚠️ : The letter being eliminated does not have to be moved! For instance, in the example puzzle, R1C1 in the solution is eliminated by swapping R1C3 and R1C4.

Penpa note: shading is not required but may be helpful for marking cells which you know can be 'cancelled'.

The rules may be confusing to those who have never played the game (and maybe even to those who have!). As such, I would recommend first trying out the example (Penpa): https://tinyurl.com/ybg2mcrk

For a Speedy Sloth 🦥, solve the puzzle in 3:30 or less!
For a Quick Crab 🦀, solve the puzzle in 7:30 or less!
And all solvers who finish get a Match Three Mussau Triller 🐦

Puzzle: (Penpa): https://tinyurl.com/y99bhys3