Nurikabe by Tapio Saarinen
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Theme: Antisymmetry
Author/Opus: This is the 9th puzzle from guest contributor Tapio Saarinen. You can find more of Tapio’s puzzles on his blog.
Rules: Standard Nurikabe rules.
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the black segments (the unnumbered, connected “ocean”) from left to right for the marked rows. Separate each row’s entry from the next with a comma.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:45, Master = 2:15, Expert = 4:30
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other classic Nurikabe. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Nurikabes to get started on.
That seemed hard for a monday.. definitely used a lot of intuition here and did not prove uniqueness at all. An impressive puzzle though, because of the huge open middle, but a kind of unsatisfying solve for me. Maybe i have to practice more nurikabe…
Glad you liked it! I was a bit surprised to see it on a Monday, too, to be honest.
Rot13’d: http://www.rot13.com/
N xrl vafvtug urer vf gung orpnhfr nyy bs gur pyhrf ner ba gur rqtrf, gjb vfynaqf pna’g gbhpu qvntbanyyl, nf gung jbhyq phg bss n cneg bs gur bprna. Gur vagraqrq oernx-va fgnegf ol rknzvat gur gbc-yrsg pbeare, jurer gur rvtug unf gb fdhrrmr cnfg gur frira naq gur avar. Gur fbyivat cngu gura sybjf pybpxjvfr.
Thanks!i solved it again using your hints and realized i had the same solving path as before, but this time proved uniqueness even if it took me some time at the end. But this time i always knew what i was doing and why 🙂
Solve went pretty quick for me until the end, (trying to satisfy the upper 9, 4, and 3 and one cell of the lower 9). Finally stopped trying to deduce anything and finished it with intuition after about 10 total minutes.
Then I spent another 10 minutes working from that same sticking point until I could finally prove uniqueness.
I’ll have to go back and try again given Tapio’s hint above. I really do love puzzles where the clues introduce a new constraint not general to the puzzle genre. Just too bad I didn’t catch on to that constraint myself.
As for Monday suitability, I imagine solving times will divide quite a bit between those who figured out what is really going on here and those, like me, that didn’t.
Thanks for the puzzle. Very impressive to see a unique Nurikabe with clues only around the edges.
Wow, really smooth solve, done it only with intuition and …
Got the Grandmaster time ! … but with an error.
And additional 30 seconds to find I made an error and correct it, which leads to a nonetheless satisfying Master time.
I will try to do it with logic only now.
9:41.