Country Road by Martin Ender
This puzzle style, originally published by Nikoli, was part of our first Loop Variety Collection.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; in default lineox mode: left-click+drag draws line, clicking one time in a cell marks a circle and a second time marks an X)
Theme: 2 Many 2×2’s
Author/Opus: This is the 2nd puzzle from guest contributor Martin Ender.
Rules: Draw a single, non-intersecting loop in the grid that enters and exits each bold region exactly once. If a number clue is given in a region, that number indicates the exact number of cells used by the loop in the region. Unused cells cannot be orthogonally adjacent across different regions.
Also, see this example:
Difficulty: 3.5 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 5:15, Master = 8:15, Expert = 16:30
Solution: PDF and solving video.
Note: Follow this link for other Loop/Path puzzles. More Country Road puzzles can be found in the Loop Variety Collection by Ashish Kumar and Murat Can Tonta.
15:49 interesting!
Really enjoyed this one. Liked how the solution path flowed through the puzzle.
Nice puzzle, although I got somehow stuck for an entire night by not seeing a cell forced to be used by an adjacent unused cell 🙁
For this puzzle type I find the penpa mode suggested to be too cluttered visually, so I used the yajilin mode which is better because the dots used to mark used cells are not visible once the loop is drawn. It makes the unused cells better too by shading them black and has a way to mark off edges.
20:15.End took forever