Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Puzzles #673 - #678 - One to Eight Collection

So, I've been sitting on this one for a while. As I write this, entries are open for Logic Showcase 66. I constructed this set of 6 puzzles for Logic Showcase 56, with the task of constructing 1-6 puzzles with 37 or fewer cells. I immediately thought of revisiting dividing a 6x6 grid into eight regions of sizes 1 to 8 each. Some of these clue types were obvious - Palisade and Checkered Fillomino - some took a bit more thinking - Symmarea and Kropki Pairs - and some were much more experimental - Thermo and Difference. If you only do one of these, do the Thermo, it's absolutely my favorite. The Symmarea was the biggest struggle to construct - turns out even finding a solution with rotationally symmetric 1-8 regions is hard. The most disappointing is the Difference since I needed the "cheater" even clues to avoid killing the puzzle extremely prematurely.

Rules for the puzzle are in the first link, and reproduced at the bottom of this post.

Divide each grid into 8 regions, each having exactly one region of size 1 to 8 each. Each grid has its own set of rules.
Checkered Fillomino: Numbers indicate the size of the region they are contained in. Regions must be two-colorable.
Palisade: Numbers indicate the number of edges drawn around the cell containing the clue. The edge of the grid counts as a drawn edge.
Symmarea: Numbers indicate the size of the region they are contained in. All regions must be 180 degree rotationally symmetric.
Thermo: Starting from the bulb, each thermometer cell must be part of a region with a strictly larger area than the previous.
Kropki Pairs: Regions separated by a white dot must have areas that differ by exactly 1. Regions separated by a black dot must have areas with a ratio of exactly 2 - one is twice as large as the other.
Difference: Regions separated by a gray dot must have areas that differ by exactly the number on the dot. An E stands for an unknown, positive even number.

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