Sunday, 15 February 2026

Lavaloid

This is the third year I've done a Chinese New Year puzzle, and this time it's the Year of the Horse! (emoji) :chart_with_horse_trend: Naturally, I chose a chess knight-themed genre, which is why today's GAPP is a Toba Knight. While it's on a square grid, I think the strangeness of the loop warrants the Sunday placement.

Rules:
- Draw a non-intersecting, non-branching path from the Start (S) grid point to the Goal (G) grid point by travelling between grid points that are a knight's move apart. (A knight's move is either 2 cells horizontally and 1 cell vertically, or 2 vertical and 1 horizontal.)
- Thick lines are "hurdles" that are crossed through the midpoint. Each hurdle must be crossed by the path. If there is a continuous thick line that spans multiple cells, each unit cell is its own hurdle. (The path is allowed to touch the ends of the hurdle, but it does not count as crossing.)
- All grid points containing numbers must be visited by the path. A grid point with the number N must cross a hurdle in each of the N moves the path makes after visiting the number. The move right after the last hurdle, if there is one, must NOT cross a hurdle.

Interface note:
- If using normal Penpa+, for answer check to work, the path must be drawn using Edge > Free one knight's move at a time. If there is a straight line segment that is the length of multiple knight's moves, it must still be drawn as individual moves.
- If using Menderbug's fork, you don't need to worry about this :)

Finish the puzzle in 4:30 or less for a Speedy Sloth 🦥!
Finish the puzzle in 9:00 or less for a Quick Crab 🦀!
Finish with any time at all for a Pegasus 🐎! (that's a bird right?)

Example (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/y9t8djb9
Puzzle (Penpa+): https://tinyurl.com/5yahwnrm
Puzzle (Penpa+, Menderbug's fork): https://tinyurl.com/32dbrkvy

Lavaloid

Mind the GAPP vol. 51


...and here's the January MtG! We have 4 bonus puzzles, but one of them is supersized. Enjoy!