Friday 10 February 2023

Puzzle 362 Penalty Heyawake

It's been a good long while dearest reader, but here's something I came up with on a bit of a whim.  Come to think of it, lots of things about this post are a bit scatter-gun.  For one, Puzzle 361 remains unpublished.  For two I don't know if this means I'll be posting anything other than quick ideas in the near future (not that I suppose I ever posted anything other than relatively quick ideas).

But yes.  All that aside, the idea of this puzzle is to apply the usual rules of Heyawake.  There is one further constraint to add to the mix: you must not be able to draw a loop in the unshaded squares.

The easiest consequence of this is that there cannot be any 2x2 blocks of unshaded squares, but there are a couple more of logical consequences/solving heuristics to consider.  I'm not sure how many of them make it into this puzzle, or whether it's something that is really worth exploring in all that much detail, or even indeed whether this is a particularly helpful name of the variation... but it will have to do for now.  Enjoy!
    #362 Penalty Heyawake – rated 5/10 [Medium]

All puzzles © Tom Collyer 2009-23.

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