Friday, 24 January 2025

Freddie Hand

The Puzzle GP is upon us! We'll be awarding bonus otters 🦦 for anyone who gives the contest a go. Today's Skyscapers (With Gaps, Distinct Diagonals) is another genre that will be appearing in the round - for instructions, see https://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/puzzle-gp. Also a reminder that number placement puzzles are pencil puzzles!

Rules: Place a number from 1 to N-1 into some cells so that each row and column contains every number from that range with no repeats. (N is the side length of the grid). Each number in the grid represents the height of a building and the clues on the outside of the grid indicate how many buildings can be “seen” when looking from that direction. Taller buildings block the view of smaller buildings. (Alternatively, a clue outside the grid represents how many cells in the corresponding row or column contain a larger number than all cells before it in that row or column from the direction of the clue).

Additionally, each number must appear exactly once on each main diagonal. Note that each row, column and main diagonal will contain exactly one empty cell.

Here's the last Skyscrapers in GAPP, courtesy of Walker: Archive: Friday, 19 January 2024

Notation Tip: It's recommended to mark empty cells as shaded and mark numbered cells as green - you can use the tab button to change between the Surface and Sudoku modes.

A little GAPP 101 too: 5 clues must see 12345 in order; even with gaps, this is quite restricted! For example, the 1 must appear in the first two cells from the direction of the 5, the 2 must appear in the second or third cell, etc.

For a Speedy Sloth 🦥 , solve in 3:30 or less!
For a Quick Crab , solve in 6:30 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with an Otarine Osprey 🐦

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/29hpttzt
Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/24ff7gy2