Kurotto by Prasanna Seshadri
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Theme: Clue Symmetry and Logic
Author/Opus: This is the 78th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.
Rules: Standard Kurotto rules.
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 with a comma.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 0:30, Master = 1:00, Expert = 2:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other Kurotto puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Kurotto to get started on. More Kurotto puzzles can be found in the ebook Kurotto by Prasanna Seshadri.
This one felt way too easy, even for a Monday puzzle. The times also seem abnormally high, since I could see the answer almost immediately after looking at it. I would have expected the GM time to be 5 or 10 seconds, not 30.
I don’t know about you, but it would take me ~30 seconds just to fill in the right number of boxes. 🙂
I suppose that’s true. 🙂 And it also takes some time to count everything and check the solution. I guess I’m usually just so baffled by how quickly the best people can do these puzzles (especially with the easy puzzles, where it often would take me more than GM time just to write down the solution) that I was surprised.
I looked at today’s puzzle while walking to work. I thought, “It’s a Monday puzzle—let’s see if I can make some progress strictly in my head.” I was pretty lucky to have tried that on a day where I managed to solve the entire puzzle without writing anything down. 🙂
Approximately:
:03 remember Kurotto rules. :02 stare at grid to see what the puzzle is without remembering to start timer. :04 verify all clues have one exit each. :05 do the math. :03 make sure 40 has two cells more than 38. :08 mentally read off and test the answer key.
Pretty good for a “foolish” puzzle this week. If you’d like to solve “John’s first Tomtom” as a bonus, take a 4×4 grid, draw a 6-cell “J”-shaped region from r1c4 to r3 to c2 to r2, and put a “1” clue in the “J”. Of course, Thomas has prior art on a similar enough puzzle that it’s just a throwaway comment here.
Thanks for both puzzles, i liked your tomtom, john! As for the kurotto, the rules and info page translates the name as “where do the black cells go” And i found it very funny that this puzzle posed the opposite question 🙂
5:02.