Dr. Sudoku Prescribes #100 – Masyu
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools in linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)
Theme: Half and Half
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of the horizontal loop segments from left to right in the marked rows, starting at the top. If the loop only has vertical segments in the marked row, enter 0. Separate each row’s entry with a comma.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:00, Master = 3:30, Expert = 7:00
Editorial Note: As we celebrate the milestone of our 100th puzzle, there are two other milestones coming this week. First, the US Sudoku Qualifying Test contains many of our puzzles; best of luck and skill to the competitors. And later this weekend we’ll have a very different kind of contest here. Watch out for it.
Solution: PDF
100th puzzle is Masyu which is my favorite, so I am very happy 😀
The theme is good and enjoyed it.
Took 5 min to solve, I have to admit that I have used uniqueness at one place (may be I was missing something).
Regards,
Ravi
I love Masyu, and I’m sure I have the correct answer, but (I’m a newbie here) I am having trouble entering the answer string. I tried w,x,y,z using the total length of all horizontal segments in each marked row (I assume that a segment reaching from the center of one cell to the center of the adjacent cell has length 1). I also tried putting spaces between the lengths of individual segments and commas to separate rows. What’s not right here?
Never mind, it worked when I removed the spaces! Nice puzzle!
Masyu seems to be the hardest entry consistently, perhaps because the counting is one off what people are thinking or they forget to check the example in the Rules and Info page. I’m glad you figured out the entry soon enough.
I have to say that whilst there are one or two all-white masyu puzzles with a bit of interest to them (I think my favourite was the one featured in the LMI puzzle marathon earlier this year), the black pearls are generally too blunt a tool to have large all-black sections adding much interest to the solve.
+1 to the count of people who repeatedly misinterpreted their solutions whilst trying to enter the code. Nothing to do with counting either!