Tuesday, 5 August 2025

bakpao

Lots of clever guesses today, but unfortunately no 🦦 bonus otters 🦦 to be handed out! Which is a little surprising, because...

... today's GAPP is a Look-Air! This is our 4th time featuring this genre, but none of the previous puzzles have had 4 clues. So here's one with 4 of them!

Rules: Shade some cells such that all connected regions of shaded cells form perfect squares. Two squares of the same size may not have a direct view of one another (i.e. have a straight line of unshaded cells in between them) but may be in the same row or column. A number in the grid represents the number of shaded cells that share at least one edge with it (including itself).

A GAPP 101 for this puzzle specifically: A 4 clue must always be shaded and must always grow into at least a 3x3 square.
You may also find this previous GAPP 101 useful: 2 clues cannot be shaded. This is because if a 2 were shaded, either the shaded cell forms a 1x1 square (in which case the 2 clue is a 1), or it forms a 2x2 square or larger (in which case the 2 clue is 3 or greater)

Most recent Look-Air (Nov/23 by Lavaloid): Archive: Wednesday, 1 November 2023

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 3:00 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 6:00 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Plot Twist Plover 🐦!

Example (pzprxs, adapted from puzz.link rules page): https://tinyurl.com/443s6xjz
Main puzzle (pzprxs): https://tinyurl.com/mw6hseyc