This is a Melon puzzle. (19 – Pento Coral)
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)
Theme: “Hard” Practice (this was a WPC puzzle style) — in contrast to this post.
Rules: Place each of the 11 pentominoes into the grid exactly once, with rotations and reflections allowed, to form a valid “Coral”. In a Coral puzzle, all blackened areas are connected, but no group of 2×2 cells is entirely blackened. Also, there are no unshaded areas enclosed by the coral (meaning each unshaded cell must have a path through its edges with other unshaded cells to a border). Numbers outside the grid indicate the lengths of groups of shaded cells in that row/column, but not necessarily in order.
Or see this example from the 22nd WPC instruction booklet.
Answer String: Enter the identities of the pentominoes (one capital letter for each, even if in multiple cells) appearing in the marked rows from left to right (eg “ILN,WVXT”).
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 10:00, Master = 20:00, Expert = 40:00
Solution: PDF
I would like to see the solving method to this, as I ended up doing quite a bit of trial and error solving it.
So my elaborate counting break-in broke down once I noticed P’s not in the set. It’s quite impressive how much headway you can make gradually by trying to fit the missing black cells into the unclued columns…
After that, it was still quite hard enough. Great puzzle, thanks!
Jeeeeez that was hard.
Can’t find the break-in for that one.
Wow, I finally solved this one after a whole day. It was difficult, but VERY rewarding!