LITS (Liar) by Prasanna Seshadri
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Logical
Author/Opus: This is the 37th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.
Rules: Variation of LITS rules. Every region here is a lie: while exactly four cells must be shaded in each bold region, they do not form an L, I, T, or S tetromino. (Note: the other rules still apply. There must be a single connected group of shaded cells, divisible into L, I, T, and S tetrominoes so that no two identical tetrominoes touch and no 2×2 block of cells is completely shaded.)
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the shaded segments from left to right for the marked rows, starting at the top. Separate each row’s entry from the next with a comma.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:30, Master = 5:00, Expert = 10:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for classic LITS. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest LITS to get started on.
Didn’t time because I broke this twice.
Interesting variant. Hard to keep track of minos; I think I prefer “No-LITS” where the rule of the black cells can still be divided into LITS is dropped, so only the regions may not contain four contiguous black cells. But still, a nice puzzle.
I felt the LITS rule being dropped would make it an anti-LITS or another inverse, rather than being a liar. Here the LITS shapes are still used, which makes it more of a liar of the original form, I think.
This one feels weird, somehow.
I think the rules work well.
An interesting variation.
I suppose this is one case where solving it on the computer in GIMP is an advantage. I was recolouring the tetrominoes as I went to keep track of them, and the solve was pretty straightforward.
I used a similar technique for Grant’s Cross the Streams/LITS hybrid last month.
– Neelix
I tend to indicate the shapes of the tetrominos with lines. That way you can still see the shapes, even though they’re not confined within a particular area. I use this when i were to solve in Paint a well. I like to keep my solving style in Paint similar as I would on paper.
A really enjoyable variant.
16:06
Very nice interaction between connectivity of LITS and dis-connectivity of cells within a region. It gets hard to track somehow because of the disconnection of in-region cells.