Monday, June 28, 2021

Puzzles #370, #371 & #372 - Hexagony Ripple Effect

Alright.
Here's the genre from Hexagony everyone was waiting for, Ripple Effect. The second puzzle here, worth 60 points, was only solved by 6 of the participants in the contest. I highly recommend giving the puzzle a real shot here to discover the logic before watching the walkthrough- I promise a nice logical path exists and is worth your time to discover.
I don't know how to make easy Ripple Effect puzzles, and it shows with this example. Regions of size 4 always tend to lead to interesting deductions and this puzzle is no exception.
I didn't try too hard to make another clueless Ripple Effect here, though I think it would have been possible with this grid shape and theme. The choice of given numbers was very economical, giving the most information at the right steps without compromising the rest of the intended logic. The break-in here is a bit subtle but should be easily spottable to those with experience.
I did say "another" clueless Ripple Effect. This was the second puzzle that I made for the contest, and oh man was it a struggle. Nicknamed "Six Feet Under" it took me several failed attempts where either I missed a number seeing itself early on or the very last placement before I finally turned up this extremely challenging puzzle. I learned a lot about structure from those failed attempts, and what region shapes would be useful to propagate information. As a result, when I had to recreate the path later, several times, I struggled to find it again! I think it's still my favorite from the contest.

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