From the Foxger’s Den #27: 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: Logical theme encountered during the solve
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 = 8:45, Master = 11:00, Expert = 22:00
Editorial Note: This is our first Giant puzzle from Grant. Not because he hasn’t been writing many; we’ve been keeping most of his giants for The Art of Puzzles so consider this a teaser for some of the great puzzles that will be in that collection.
Solution: PDF
That certainly took a lot of work to solve, I can’t imagine how tough it is to design something that huge. Only had one error as I was going through, and caught it quickly; I can’t imagine the level of frustration if you mess up something, but it isn’t quite bad enough to cause immediate problems. Tracking down one error in a puzzle this size seems almost impossible. Thanks for the challenge!
Cool design.
Took me 34 min to solve, failed to look at one point and wasted some time. It is good that the giant puzzle is my favorite type.
Regards,
Ravi
I guess “logical theme” in this case means “constantly pushing loops around the puzzle trying to keep them open”, which was really a heck of a lot of fun. Very nice puzzle.
(hums “To Keep My Loop Alive”)
Since I’ve seen it enough times to want a canonical name (although it is well-executed here compared to some examples), I tend to call this “don’t close the loop” or sometimes just a “chase” as the two ends meander together with each darting ahead of the other a bit at a time.
Just missed the Grandmaster time by 22 seconds (making it the first time I’ve missed the GM time on a Masyu). That was a lot of fun. I can never have enough of these loops that “chase” as you call it.
I laughed out loud a couple times when I saw how much was forced to keep two ends from closing off into a loop.
I also enjoyed several times when I had a white circle and had to think “if it goes through here this way, then these two ends would have to connect up, so it must go the other way.” That seemed to be a recurring theme of this puzzle.
I got stalled on this one for a while… only to discover that I had overlooked a basic deduction in one cell. (several times)
– Neelix