Sunday, 2 August 2026

Freddie Hand

Unfortunately nobody guessed that today's puzzle would be a Gravel. Keep going! The fabled first otter 🦦 is still up for grabs.

Gravel is a cool genre invented by Menderbug over 4 years ago but has just now been implemented in pzprxs. Which is great because it doesn't work in Penpa+ at all.

Rules:
- Shade some cells and divide the remaining cells into squares.
- Each unshaded square must touch at least one other square or the edge of the grid on each of its lower sides. (Alternative phrasing: in the final solution, none of the squares can slide or fall, assuming gravity acts downwards)
- Unshaded squares of identical size cannot share an edge.
- Black circles must be shaded, and white circles must be unshaded.
- Number clues inside shaded regions indicate the total area of the region.
- Number clues inside unshaded squares indicate the side length of the square.

Here's a little GAPP 101 in case you get stuck: an unshaded cell with shaded cell below it (either to the left or to the right) cannot contain a 1x1 square.

Acquire a Speedy Sloth 🦥 by solving the puzzle in 4:30 or less!
Obtain a Quick Crab 🦀 by solving the puzzle in 8:00 or less!
And all solvers who complete the puzzle will be rewarded with a Zany Tanager 🐦

Example (pzprxs): https://tinyurl.com/4wzuecvb
Puzzle (pzprxs): https://tinyurl.com/548f4y3h