Puzzles #738 - #746 - Santa's Choco Banana

For the Secret Solver puzzle exchange on Puzzle'rs Club this past December, I got assigned Menderbug, who had previously written for me back in 2022. My first idea was to do something with Rail Pool, but before I started working on that idea I had a thought - what if I took the same idea that was made for me - a series of Symmetry Area puzzles on increasingly less regular grids - and applied that to Menderbug's signup comment of  "I like Choco Banana"? Once I had that idea, I had to go for it.

For all of these puzzles, all shaded areas must be convex and all unshaded areas must be concave. The entire pack can be found here.

My original plan was to make a small and large puzzle for each grid shape, and so I tried to focus on interesting logic for the smaller ones and that + a good layout for the large ones. Time pressure ended up pushing back some parts of this plan but the modular nature of the plan meant that I could easily scale back and have something that felt complete.

puzz.link interface

puzz.link interface

Menderbug is also the person who has pioneered triangular Choco Banana among the most, including making a few for GAPP. I definitely felt some pressure to try to deliver something new and interesting here, and while I'm not sure I succeeded I'm quite happy with what I ended up making.

penpa interface

penpa interface

Tetrakis Choco Banana has also been done before, though only with rectangle/not rectangle. I made so many mistaken deductions while trying to make these two puzzles... it's a weird geometry to get to grips with.

penpa interface

penpa interface

The last 3 puzzles are where the rules really start to fall apart a bit, as some of these geometries are really only good for a one-off puzzle. Rhombi worked okay but were prone to paired cell ambiguities, Snub Square actually worked very well and my biggest regret is only having time to make one of those, while Penrose... well, it's much like Rhombi except weirder. Definitely a one-off but a one-off worth exploring.

penpa interface

penpa interface

penpa interface

Overall I'm quite pleased with this set, and while Menderbug immediately thanked me specifically for it (not so secret) I knew that I was revealing my identity with the plan. He also said "I was going to say which puzzle/tiling I liked best, but I don't know, there was something really cool in each of them." after solving, which is very high praise indeed.