Wednesday, 1 May 2024

bakpao

It's time to revisit Cave! It's been a while since we last featured a vanilla one. I wrote this a few days ago, to have a backup puzzle available in case I don't manage to write anything else for GAPP in time. Coincidentally, the IB for Puzzle Ramayan round 5 was published just yesterday, and it just so happens to include Cave as a genre - perfect timing 😄

Bonus otters are still active for PR R4 and GP R4, and starting Friday you'll be able to collect a third for participating in the new PR round! 🦦🦦🦦
See the IB here: https://logicmastersindia.com/live/?contest=PR202405

Today's puzzle is a Cave!

Rules: Shade some cells so that the shaded cells are all connected orthogonally by other shaded cells to the edge of the grid, and the remaining unshaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the total number of unshaded cells that can be seen in a straight line vertically or horizontally, including itself.

GAPP 101: Any 2x2 area of a cave puzzle cannot be a checkerboard of shaded and unshaded cells. This is because to connect the unshaded cells and have just one single cave, you would have to wrap around one of the shaded cells, and in turn stop it from connecting to the edge of the grid.

Previous appearances of Cave:
Nov/22, Tyrg: Archive: Friday, 11 November 2022
Dec/21, Tyrg (supersized): Archive: Saturday, 4 December 2021
Nov/21, Shye: Archive: Saturday, 27 November 2021

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 2:15 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 4:30 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Joyful Jackdaw 🐦!

Example (puzz.link, by Tyrgannus): https://tinyurl.com/2p883637
Main puzzle (puzz.link): https://tinyurl.com/zwrzfrkh