From the Foxger’s Den #65: Cross the Streams
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Triple Play
Rules: Standard Cross the Streams rules.
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the black segments from top to bottom for the marked columns, going in order from A to B to C to D and separating each entry with a comma.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:00, Master = 6:30, Expert = 13:00
Solution: PDF
The ?*? clue caught my eye on this one, and I was curious; is there any functional difference between ?*?, ??*, and *??, and how do I end that sentence with a question mark? Seems to me they function the same; just a stylistic choice which version to use?
“and how do I end that sentence with a question mark” certainly ranks as one of my favorite comments here. Thanks for the laugh.
There is no functional difference between those clues but it may be wanting the more symmetric presentation that ended up with ?*? being the winner here. People also tend to look at the clues from the two ends so there could be a puzzle psychology benefit to having the 2+ something sandwich use ?’s as the bread.
04:40.
Wow, this one is tough. Nice puzzle. I’m not sure whether I’m indeed supposed to brute force all possibilities of the 2 in C10, but that’s what I did; any better way to resolve it?
In a sense, I brute-forced that part, too, though it didn’t really feel like that. More like figuring out that a 2 along a strip of width 2 prevents connectivity. … That could probably be phrased more cleanly.
Connectivity is a pretty good word. That part of the puzzle is like the finish of a snake puzzle. As with snakes, getting out of and back into column 9, a column 10 part needs to be 3 or longer so the 2 is forced to be a stubby end instead. Definitely the trickiest/least common part of the puzzle.