It seems to me that the best case scenario for me as the author is that everyone manages to click. In which case there seems to be only a minor pay-off before everything gets standard. Still, having steadfastly argued earlier this week that an otherwise unspectacular puzzle still had some merit to it based on a novel and interesting move to finish it off, I suppose I should be happy with this. Enjoy!
Update: My thanks to Bryce Herd who pointed out that an earlier version of this puzzle failed to satisfy a basic theorem of graph theory!
#064 Hashiwokakero – rated hardAll puzzles © Tom Collyer 2009-10
Sure enough, there was a very satisfying a-ha moment where the puzzle went from “omg how is this possibly going to be unique?” to fairly smooth sailing. I like the fact (not to spoil too much) that it’s a Hashi where the center is more important/useful than the edges/corners to getting going, and where once you see the logic it feels like its been hidden in plain sight all along.
ReplyDeleteI’m having a problem. I think there’s a parity issue; I count five rows where the sum of the clues is odd.
ReplyDeleteThat’s a really interesting point that you raise, and a nice exercise in graph theory. I think that’s a silly mistake resulting from my trying to disguise the clues, and one that I can only assume I missed is because it only becomes apparent once you have connected up all the components, and assume that you are done!
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, it’s fixed now!