Friday, June 18, 2021

Puzzles #356, #357 & #358 - Hexagony Bosnian Road

Getting loopy puzzles into Hexagony proved challenging. The solution was to pick a snaky type, and I chose Bosnian Road because I like the way the clues work. One problem: I'd literally never made one of these before! It was definitely a learning experience and none of these three puzzles turned out too difficult, but I still managed to work some nice steps into the contest puzzles.
My entire goal with the example was to show that the clues weren't Tapa-like, and were instead Minesweeper-like. I honestly didn't put much effort into this construction other than making something that worked and was symmetric.
I did put a lot of effort into this puzzle, however. I started with the layout of givens as I was certain it could yield an interesting puzzle, and then placed the clues necessary for the break-in because I really wanted to use that sort of deduction. Cleaning up the rest of the puzzle took a lot more effort to get right than it does to solve, creating a reasonable challenge perfect for an early spot in the contest.
On a hexagonal grid, a snaky path is just as forcing as on a square grid, and I used a different core trick for the hardest step here. Again, it shouldn't be too bad to figure out, but if you get stuck I do have a solution video for these as well.

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