Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Menderbug

Cartography is a recent genre by machka. It uses the same basic rules as Statue Park, but introduces a really interesting novel type of clue. That said, this clue can be a little confusing at first, so I've annotated the example solution with some outlines showing which cells are counted by some of the clues.

Rules: Place each shape from the bank given outside the grid into the grid so that no two shapes share an edge and all unused cells form one orthogonally connected area. Rotating and reflecting shapes is allowed. Cells containing compasses cannot be shaded. A number in a compass indicates the size of the connected unshaded area which covers the cell directly in front of the number and lies entirely further in the indicated direction than the compass itself.

Interface note: Make sure you don't shade grey/black outside of the grid (e.g. to keep track of used shapes), as this will break the answer checker. You can either use a different colour (like the default green for unshading) or any other type of input like Edge to cross them out.

Score a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 3:00 or less!
Collect a Quick Crab 🦀 by completing the puzzle in 6:00 or less!
Finish the puzzle in your own time to become the proud owner of an Mapmaking Magpie 🐦!

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/29l3cyew
Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/2bjjztyr