Wednesday, 12 June 2024

Freddie Hand

It's been ages since our last classic Kuromenbun. Actually, it's been forever because we haven't had one yet. The genre is about as funky as its name, which is probably a portmanteau of KURO (black), banMEN (grid), and BUNdan (division).

Rules: Shade some cells on the board. Numbers cannot be shaded. The combination of given borders and shaded cells divide the unshaded cells into regions. A number indicates how many shaded cells are horizontally or vertically adjacent to the unshaded region it is in, even if they are on the other side of a border. Regions can have no more than 1 number (but may have no numbers).

The clues in this genre might be a little confusing to begin with! A few examples of how they work are given below, in addition to the example puzzle.

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 3:45 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 7:30 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with an Coiffure Crab-Plover 🐦

Example (Puzz.link): https://tinyurl.com/32565hb3
Puzzle (Puzz.link): https://tinyurl.com/bdcmf27b