Puzzles #352, #353 & #354 - Hexagony Spiral Galaxies

It's kind of impossible to have missed that I recently ran a puzzle contest named Hexagony. Over the next two weeks, I'll be posting all of the puzzles I constructed for the contest (including examples), alongside a solution video walkthrough for the puzzles from that type. There were a few types where Eric Fox, my co-constructor, contributed all 3 necessary puzzles. On those days, I'll just post the solution video and some thoughts on the puzzles.

I started off the contest with Spiral Galaxies, not because I thought it would be the smoothest start, but because of the hidden theme in the first contest puzzle. Remember that for the participants, they would have no idea that half of the puzzles had hexagonal grids before beginning. First though, here's the example puzzle I put together.

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The first contest puzzle ended up being one of the hardest puzzles in the entire contest, as well as one of the largest. The size was necessary for the theme, which is something I wonder if people caught on to while solving and inferred how things were likely to go. It's a very satisfying logical solve, however.

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And finally, the only working puzzle that was rejected for the contest- I posted this with the results, but am reposting it here to canonize it in my numbered puzzles. It's a fun solve- I did not record a solution to this puzzle, but that shouldn't be an issue as it's much easier than the main contest puzzle.

puzz.link interface