Friday, 26 July 2024

bakpao

It's been great seeing all your kind words of appreciation for our milestone puzzle! I noticed the other day that my upcoming post on my personal blog will be my 100th entry. To celebrate, I've decided to try and write another mashup using the same grid, rules and genres, but without the difficulty cap. It will probably be a while before it's finished, but if you're eager to explore the combinations some more, keep an eye out 👀!

As for today, we're doing another new Nikoli genre!

Today's puzzle is a Point Plate! This type features in the two most recent installments of Nikoli's quarterly Puzzle Communication magazine. This is a revised version of the original genre, which did not have number clues. I think adding them was a good choice. Also, the Nikoli version uses given region borders, but I've left those out for today.

Rules:
- Divide the grid into regions of orthogonally connected cells such that each region contains at most one number clue.
- Number clues represent how many cells are in the region the clue belongs to.
- Regions cannot be rectangular in shape and cannot cover 2x2s areas.
- Exactly three region borders extend from grid points marked with a dot, each separating different regions. Not all dots are necessarily given.

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 2:30 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 5:00 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Pointy Puaiohi 🐦!

Example (Penpa+, the example is a bit on the tricky side today): https://tinyurl.com/2587xh4r
Main puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/2amtb32n