Friday, 8 December 2023

Menderbug

Walkthrough for yesterday's Latin Square: https://youtu.be/Hv1FDFMRG4Y

I recently came across this lesser-known Nikoli genre called タコ足 (which I believe translates to Octopus Legs). Nikoli presents this as a loop genre, but (as with Cave for instance) I find shading a lot more natural for these, so that's what we're going with. I promise it's a lot more approachable than the other octopus genre.

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. Circle clues must be shaded. Black circles indicate a dead end of the shaded area. White circles indicate a turn or branch of the shaded area.

If you've been around for a while, you might be expecting this one, but there's a very useful GAPP 101 for this genre: Similar to Coral and other genres, there can never be a 2x2 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.

Score a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 2:00 or less!
Collect a Quick Crab 🦀 by completing the puzzle in 4:00 or less!
Finish the puzzle in your own time to become the proud owner of a Eight-legged Owl 🐦!

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/ykvphxoc
Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/yua55s2h