Tuesday, 26 April 2022

Freddie Hand

Clover has really been having fun posting practice puzzles for various sudoku contests in GAS. It's time that we upped our game and pumped out some practice for puzzle contests. (And I think I've cracked the secret formula for success.)

Thus, here is an Eels puzzle, which is a genre appearing in the upcoming WPF puzzle GP round (authored by the UK, and including puzzles from Sam and PolmanPoppins). And more importantly, solvers who compete - or complete the Instructions Booklet - are eligible for a bonus otter!! 🦦 link here - https://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/instruction-booklet-2

Speaking of which, bakpao has produced an excellent (and almost to-scale) set of practice puzzles for the GP. Wort (sic) has is that the pack can be found here: Discord message

Rules: Shade some cells such that each orthogonally connected group of shaded cells or unshaded cells forms a one-wide path that may not touch itself orthogonally and is at least four cells in length. Clued cells cannot be shaded. A black arrow means that the adjacent cell in the indicated direction is shaded. A white arrow means that the adjacent cell in the indicated direction is unshaded. A number in a circle indicates the amount of cells in the path the circle belongs to.

GP NOTE: In the GP, the rules of this genre have been altered to disallow eels touching themselves diagonally. This makes no difference for these puzzles, but may be important to bear in mind if you are planning to participate in the GP.

Example (Penpa+), by Eric Fox (and edited slightly to reduce difficulty): https://tinyurl.com/yhmf4xna

For a Speedy Sloth 🦥, solve in 2:45 or less!
For a Quick Crab 🦀, solve in 6:00 or less!
And all solvers who finish will get a Scaly Laughingthrush 🐦

Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/2fd4nmwd