Thursday, 22 January 2026

Menderbug

Oh hi, long time no see! Bakpao was at risk of having to write a puzzle today. I couldn't let that happen, so I'm filling in with a guest puzzle. Either that or I didn't want to miss out on Walk Week. Today we have an Aether Walk, another ruleset by @Parachor who also brought you Energy Walk (and a few others). This walk is also quite similar to an earlier Earth Walk prototype by TwoHoleStraw, though I believe they were invented independently.

Rules: Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centres of some cells. When the loop enters a pink aether cell, it jumps ahead to another aether cell in its current direction of travel and exits that cell in the same direction, skipping over all cells in between. There can be at most one horizontal (vertical) jump in each row (column). An aether cell may be used both horizontally and vertically, without connecting the two loop ends. The loop visits every number clue, which indicates how many cells make up the continuous non-aether section of the loop that the number is on.

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 Perambulating Parakeet 🐦!

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/yhkt2tuy
Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/3y4rt23b