Friday, February 16, 2024

Puzzles #634 & #635 - TV Tower (Multi-Skyscrapers)

Before WPC 2023, I ran a Puzzle Getchu!, a contest themed on Ape Escape. I had intended to queue these puzzles for posting before WPC, but didn't have the time. Better late than never!

The penultimate level, TV Tower, is a skyscraper. But I didn't just want to go with a big Skyscrapers puzzle since I felt an 8x8 or larger would be less interesting. I also didn't think I could pull it off well! So I added the multi rule: Circled cells act as clues for all adjacent grids and will have the same value for all grids.

The example had a lot to show and I'm kind of surprised this grid layout even has any solutions, let alone working with such a sparse antisymmetric cluing. I almost like the example more than the contest puzzle.

The 20 point contest puzzle had to be multiple stacked grids, of course. My first attempt was a pair of 7x7 grids, but after a few hours I found I had no way to resolve the middle. So I scrapped that start and briefly considered three 5x5 grids before discarding that idea - WSPC 2021 did a 3x3 array of these and I had nothing new to add. I then set up three 6x6 grids and thought it looked way too large, so I nerfed it down to a pair of 6x6 grids and went for it. I used the same break-in as the aborted 7x7 attempt since I'd already discovered it, and there was no point not using the things I learned from that failed attempt.

No comments:

Post a Comment