Saturday, 4 January 2025

Freddie Hand

As we continue to milk the new year for GAPP intros with a countup and balloons, let's not forget the folks whose birthdays have been rather overshadowed. It must suck to only receive one pair of socks instead of two. To you, I gift a Useful Pot, or a Supersized Balloon Box (though I suspect only a small proportion of you will appreciate this present).

Meanwhile, Bobbins the Cat laps extra creamy Jersey milk while reclining in his armchair. He's earned a well-deserved rest after a fruitful career of arboreal cultivation - his wife, Mittens the Cat, is handling the decoration this year. She bought a plastic tree with LED branches for extra colour, and less pesky needles. Even Bobbins is tired of those.

Rules: Draw several non-intersecting paths such that each path starts at a given clue and ends at a grey cell, and divide the grey cells into rectangular regions such that the area of the region is equal to the number clue that the region is connected to via its path. Each region connects to exactly one path. All empty cells in the grid must be used by a path or connected region. Different paths and regions cannot overlap. Cells used by the same path (which are not consecutive line segments) do not touch orthogonally.

Try the previous Balloon Box in GAPP here, courtesy of bakpao: Discord message

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 3:45 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 6:30 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Buoyant Bugun Liocichla 🐦

Example (pzprxs), by bakpao: https://tinyurl.com/2psvenv2
Puzzle (pzprxs): https://tinyurl.com/4vcn8z2j (Landscape)
Puzzle (pzprxs): https://tinyurl.com/2zfracv7 (Portrait)