Monday, 23 June 2025

Freddie Hand

GAPP has been around for a while, so we've mostly exhausted the genres on pzprxs. Of course, there remain some beasts that no one has dared touch so far, either because they are too weird or too hard (or both).

Walker has done great work in this department recently with Nagareru Loop, Combi Block, Bossa Nova, Kazunori-room, and Toichika (and surely others I've missed). You'll definitely never see a Simple Gako.

Today's genre, Stairwell, is not too difficult but the rules are a bit of a handful. Well, you probably won't need all of them anyway...

Rules:
- Place circles into some cells such that no two circles are orthogonally adjacent and the remaining white cells form a single orthogonally connected area. Clues represent the number of circles in the (up to) four cells surrounding the clue.
- Additionally, divide the remaining white area into 1xN regions, each at least two cells long.
- Two of these regions with the same orientation may not be adjacent along their short end.
- Two regions which touch orthogonally must have a difference in length of exactly 1.

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 an Offbeat Ogea Monarch 🐦

Example (pzprxs): https://tinyurl.com/2zr85dyz
Puzzle (pzprxs): https://tinyurl.com/5x9r24d5