Wednesday, 15 June 2022

Freddie Hand

At GAPP we try to make our puzzles approachable for a (fairly) international audience. So today's puzzle, Falling Numbers, is the non-abecedarian version of Falling Letters, a genre which first appeared at 2017 WPC, invented by Nikola Živanović. (I haven't just made this up on the spot, falling numbers has appeared before!). And watch out for a falling numbers puzzle with '27' clues coming soon to truly assert its dominance.

Speaking of which, Falling Numbers (modulo n) could be an interesting variant... anyway,

Rules: Place numbers into some cells in the grid. Equal numbers cannot share a side, and blank/shaded cells cannot share a side. Each outlined region must be filled in increasing order, starting with 1, from left to right and top to bottom (i.e in reading order). Each outlined region contains at least one blank/shaded cell. Cells with numbers form a single (orthogonally) connected area.

Note: it is not necessary to shade all blank cells for answer check. However it maybe be helpful as notation (and similarly greening cells which are known to contain a number).

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/ywkzrcaa

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 5:00 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 11:45 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Tumbling Tumbes Pewee 🐦

Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/269jv3wq