Friday Puzzle #41 - 2010 Hashiwokakero (Bridges)
Last week I tackled kakuro, which I argued rarely have memorable themes or interesting solves to me. I still enjoy the type, but as a mental exercise to beat the clock more than anything else. Thinking I'd possibly been unfairly negative to the type, it turned out that the comments were more negative towards kakuro than even my pointed post.
At the risk of completely losing my audience again, I figured this week I'd tackle another style that has never really interested me because it is too easy and routine - Hashiwokakero. Again, I've made some of my own variants on Hashi to try to spice the style up (including a hodgepodge of Hashi and kakuro which ended up being plagiarized so it must have been reasonably good). I incorporated some of the few "classic" bridges themes that came to mind when I wrote about them in PuzzleCraft #49, but even there after 3 puzzles I threw in an island size variation for the fourth of the set. I do have some favorite hashi, but they are almost exclusively the brilliants ones by 45 (certainly the all-4 theme) and after those there is an immediate drop-off. I still believe there can sometimes be interesting steps in such puzzles, and have done my best to incorporate some of them in this 1-4 only puzzle below. Its on the harder side of medium for bridges puzzles. Enjoy.
Rules: Draw horizontal and vertical lines ("bridges") between the circles ("islands") to form a connected network such that there is a path along bridges between any two islands. There can be either one or two bridges between each vertically/horizontally connected pair of islands, and the numbers in the islands indicate the total number of bridges immediately connected to that island. Or see here.
At the risk of completely losing my audience again, I figured this week I'd tackle another style that has never really interested me because it is too easy and routine - Hashiwokakero. Again, I've made some of my own variants on Hashi to try to spice the style up (including a hodgepodge of Hashi and kakuro which ended up being plagiarized so it must have been reasonably good). I incorporated some of the few "classic" bridges themes that came to mind when I wrote about them in PuzzleCraft #49, but even there after 3 puzzles I threw in an island size variation for the fourth of the set. I do have some favorite hashi, but they are almost exclusively the brilliants ones by 45 (certainly the all-4 theme) and after those there is an immediate drop-off. I still believe there can sometimes be interesting steps in such puzzles, and have done my best to incorporate some of them in this 1-4 only puzzle below. Its on the harder side of medium for bridges puzzles. Enjoy.
Rules: Draw horizontal and vertical lines ("bridges") between the circles ("islands") to form a connected network such that there is a path along bridges between any two islands. There can be either one or two bridges between each vertically/horizontally connected pair of islands, and the numbers in the islands indicate the total number of bridges immediately connected to that island. Or see here.