Friday, 21 June 2024

Menderbug

Puzzle GP Round 6 starts in a couple of hours. As usual, you may claim a bonus otter 🦦 if you participate (you've got until Wednesday, I believe). Walker already made a prep puzzle earlier this week (the diagonal-clue Yajilin) and today we're going to feature another ruleset from the round: Snake (Diagonal)

Rules:
- Draw a non-intersecting path moving orthogonally and diagonally between cell centres, which does not touch itself, not even diagonally. (In other words, if two cells in the snake touch orthogonally, then they must be exactly one cell apart along the path of the snake, and if two cells in the snake touch diagonally, then they must be one or two cells apart along the path of the snake.)
- Black circles must lie on one end of the path.
- Cells marked with a cross cannot be visited by the path.
- A number outside the grid represents how many cells in the corresponding row or column are used by the path.

Interface note: Answer check accepts either a line or shading all the cells that the snake visits. The example solution in the image below uses a thicker path for visual clarity. If you want, you can draw such a path by switching to Special -> Rectangle Frame mode, but answer check will ignore this type of input.

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 Diagonally Banded Snake Eagle 🐦!

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/2y288ma5
Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/27u26afz