Golem Grad by Serkan Yürekli
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use Tab key to alternate between line drawing and shading)
Theme: Clue Symmetry and Logic
Author/Opus: This is the 59th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Serkan Yürekli.
Rules: Variation of Nurikabe. Shade some empty cells black so that the grid is divided into white areas, each containing at most one number. A white area with a number must have the same area in cells as that number. White areas may only touch diagonally. All shaded cells must be connected with each other, but no 2×2 group of cells can be entirely shaded. Also, all shaded cells must be divisible into snakes with the heads and tails given in the grid. Snakes cannot cross each other.
Also, see this example:
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the black segments from left to right for the marked rows, starting at the top. Separate each row’s entry with a comma. This example has the key “7,32,31”.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:30, Master = 4:45, Expert = 9:30
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other variations of Nurikabe and this link for more classic Nurikabe. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Nurikabes to get started on.
“At most”! Really hard to break out of some Nurikabe habits on this one.
You had the same problem I did. Tuesday’s puzzle certainly lured me into a bit of complacency about that. A challenging variant for me even after I got better at taking that into account.
Yeah, same here. I don’t think I even noticed the “at most” part in Tuesday’s rules, so coming up against it so forcefully here was a bit of a nasty shock for me. *wry smile*
V qb yvxr gur flzzrgel bs gur nafjre fgevat gubhtu. 🙂
– Neelix
That puzzle had a very satisfying finish. Thank you, Serkan.