Sunday, 9 April 2023

Freddie Hand

Today's puzzle is a Coral, which like cross the streams, is basically another nonogram variant, but unlike nonogram, it does not have a million different alternative names. So to make it feel less lonely, I've come up with a few alternative names:
- Vorderman
- Lewis
- The One Where You Shade Some Cells And Make A Funny Shape

Rules: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area and the unshaded cells are all connected orthogonally by other unshaded cells to the edge of the grid. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. Clues outside the grid represent the lengths of each of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells in the corresponding row or column, not necessarily in order. The absence of clues in a row/column means there is no information given.

The following hint is a very important property of the genre, so reading it is certainly recommended if you haven't come across Coral before!

GAPP 101: Remember the 'no 2x2 checkerboard' constraint from cave? Well, that applies here as well, entirely analogously! Specifically, no 2x2 area can consist of a checkerboard of shaded and unshaded cells. This is because to connect the shaded cells, you have to 'wrap around' one of the unshaded cells, preventing it from connecting to the edge of the grid.

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 3:15 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 6:45 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with an Pacific Reef Heron 🐦

Example (Puzz.link) from puzz.link rules page: https://tinyurl.com/7ccv3p3p
Puzzle (Puzz.link): https://tinyurl.com/mry323dx