Fillomino by Palmer Mebane
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Theme: Married or Single?
Author/Opus: This is the 35th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Palmer Mebane.
Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.
Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Enter just the last digit for any two-digit number. Start with the 7th row, followed by a comma, followed by the 8th column.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:15, Master = 4:00, Expert = 8:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.
I don’t get the theme of this one. 🙁
You’re not missing much. Bs gur cbylbzvabrf gung pbagnva ng yrnfg bar tvira, unys pbagnva rknpgyl gjb gung ner 5-8 naq unys pbagnva rknpgyl bar gung ner 1-4.
11:30 Thanks for explaining, Palmer. The question mark in the theme set me up to expect something surprising during the solving. I kept thinking i should mistrust my intuition, but intuition ended up working just fine after all, (fcrpvsvpnyyl, pbaarpg nyy cnvef bs pyhrf gung pbhyq cbffvoyl or pbaarpgrq), so I was scratching my head wondering if I had missed something.
Incidentally, Thomas, this post marks the second time a puzzle was mentioned as Palmer’s 34th. So I think your count got off somewhere.
Oh, my apologies for misusing the question mark. I avoid cluing puzzles like crosswords, so I’m a less familiar with those conventinos.
Hm, the theme made sense to me as referring to whether the non-boundary pairs of 5, 6, and 7 clues connect to their partners or not, which seemed to be the break-in of the puzzle. Enjoyed it!
(which I was able to determine by fhzzvat nyy gur pyhrf nffhzvat gubfr guerr cnvef pbaarpgrq, gura frrvat vs gurer jrer rabhtu gbgny pryyf va gur tevq gb nppbzzbqngr nal bs gubfr cnvef abg pbaarpgvat)
9:59 Nice puzzle
02:10. Surprisingly Grandmaster time.
Well, I did a few leaps of faith, where I haven’t fully proved one path works before going with it. But still, an interesting theme and an excellent execution as well.
And by theme I mean the eight polyominoes at the outside jutting inward, making the other polyominoes to swerve around. The aesthetic theme that all 5-8 numbers are paired together and all 1-4 numbers remain single are interesting too, but certainly a hard thing to notice.