This is a Melon puzzle. (17 – Nurikabe Scrabble)
(View image directly for larger form.)
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use Tab to alternate between number entry and shading)
Theme: String Lengths
Rules: Variation of Nurikabe and Scrabble/Criss-Cross puzzles.
Place the 12 number strings into the grid, reading from left to right or from top to bottom, so they are all connected criss-cross style and also form a valid Nurikabe ocean. No unlisted string can appear anywhere, not even two-character ones, and the strings do not occupy any 2×2 area. The remaining white cells are part of islands as in a Nurikabe puzzle. Each island is represented by one number in the grid which equals its size in cells.
Or see this example from the 22nd WPC instruction booklet.
Answer String: For each column from left to right, enter the total count of zeroes from the entered strings. Enter the result as a single string (eg “401120…”)
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 7:00, Master = 15:00, Expert = 30:00
Solution: PDF
This one was so much harder than the one on the WPC, and I ended up doing it partially by feel.
Very nice variant !
Cool puzzle, but man… These last two have really kicked my tail. Tough week.
I miss seeing the How-to-solve posts from earlier days (one of the highlights of this blog, given the caliber of the creators), and the last couple might make good candidates?
Really nice puzzle. Minor note, since I know you strive for accuracy: would it be best to change the instructions on the PDF & here with the word “characters” instead of “letters”, since you actually used numbers for this particular Scrabble puzzle?
Updated. I thought I had removed those in adapting the instructions but I see that the old “two-letter ones” part was imprecise.
My favorite moment with this puzzle type at the WPC was with the playoffs form which ended up having a planets theme. I’d made a convincing arrangement of possible word locations that fulfilled all the island sizes, but in counting my entries I found I had 9 planets. Looking closely at the word list, I saw that I’d need to do some quick downsizing to get that puzzle done.