Wednesday, 9 August 2023

Menderbug

Walkthrough for yesterday's Nurikabe: https://youtu.be/zIhxDKyMrGY

Own an otter, they said. They're so adorable, they said. Sure, but they didn't say anything about my utility bills as they keep filling the bathtub to take naps and hold hands in it, or about how quickly they multiply. Here, @scor @kino @GarlicBredFries @NotJeff @rotiro, you can have mine: 🦦🦦🦦🦦🦦.

Did you know that we haven't covered Easy as ABC since day 20 of GAPP? That was a long time ago. Did you also know that, while it's convention, there is no need for the letters you're placing in each row and column to all be distinct? As for today's puzzle, I can't quite believe that this works either.

Rules: Place letters from the list given outside the grid into some cells so that each row and column contains each letter as often as indicated in the top right corner. A clue outside the grid represents the first letter seen in the corresponding row or column from that direction.

Penpa+ tip: If you notate the empty cells with - they'll get ignored by the answer checker, so there's no need to switch to Surface mode or some other tool. At least on PC you might find this more convenient.

GAPP 101: While most of the Easy as ABC logic tends to happen close to the edge of the grid, don't forget to consider the Latin Square constraints later in the solve.

Score a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 3:00 or less!
Collect a Quick Crab 🦀 by completing the puzzle in 5:30 or less!
Finish the puzzle in your own time to become the proud owner of a Agile Blue Crane 🐦!

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/2yd96lvp
Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/25avlkjx