Star Battle (Myopia) by JinHoo Ahn
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; in composite Star Battle mode a left click places a star, right click in a cell marks off the cell, and a right click on an edge or corner marks in a dot as a placement note.)
Theme: Parquet
Author/Opus: This is the 41st puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster JinHoo Ahn.
Rules: Standard Star Battle rules. Two stars per row, column, and region. Also, the arrow clues indicate all the directions (up, down, left, and right) where the nearest stars are located when looking from that square.
See also this example:
Difficulty: 2.5 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:00, Master = 4:15, Expert = 8:30
Solution: PDF; a solution video is also available here.
Note: Follow this link for other classic Star Battles and this link for Star Battle variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Star Battles to get started on. More Star Battle puzzles can be found in The Art of Puzzles, in the books Star Battle by JinHoo Ahn and Star Battle 2 by JinHoo Ahn and Murat Can Tonta, and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.
Lovely puzzle….nice variation. Saw a similar puzzle type in LMI PR Round … was called star gazing … didn’t have regions though …. more like myopia gaps.
Really enjoyed this variation
Some lovely logic here…Never seen this variant before.
My first experience with the variation was with the four puzzles JinHoo wrote for the Star Battle 2 book here. While the Myopia rule is known for some other genres, it does work well as an internal clue for Star Battle and we’re excited to see more authors explore it a bit.
if anyone wants it, here’s a penpa of the example puzzle: https://tinyurl.com/ycq2whgd
Thanks David Glasser for the example, did it and it really helped to test out some deductions for the rules
Thank you so much for this!
This variant was originally introduced at the WPC in Senec in 2016.
Is it an explicit rule or not that the arrow spaces can’t have stars in them as well? Would have been nice to know.
I don’t believe it was made explicit that if a cell has more than one arrow, the nearest stars in those directions must each be the same distance from that cell.
I wasn’t able to complete the puzzle until I had that information.
i feel you. i was doing a wcpn round for fun and absolutely suffered for half an hour until i made that deduction.
awesome puzzle! really felt like i was unlearning how to do star battles while solving