Friday Puzzle #102 - Slitherline

[motris]

You might think there is a typo in the title. And there is, only it's the word Friday. As I was away in China for the last several days, I did not meet my normal publishing schedule. But my visit to the Great Wall encouraged this slitherlink variation where instead of forming a loop you form a single long wall. While the variation seems obvious

Comments

[anonymous]

Fun, thanks! It was trickier than I thought it'd be.

The puzzle type seems to be quite susceptible to uniqueness arguments while you don't know where the line ends. But in the end I'm not sure these situations were relevant when finding the actual solution.

Cheers
Rob

[motris]

Sure - there are certainly some spots where the end of the line can't go as it would possibly have too many choices, but that didn't seem too hard to lock down when constructing.

In my own testing, I found this puzzle can be approached like something on a "broken puzzle" round at a WPC - solve as it it is a straight slitherlink until you find ~2 areas that have problems. Then undo work in those spots to proceed.

[motris]

I haven't tested enough puzzles to be sure. On this puzzle you should be able to identify one of the two ends reasonably well (it may be at this spot or that spot but it is certainly in that area) which lets you use logic on the other. When everything is up in the air I'm less sure how easy it will be.