Puzzle Description:

Let's turn off the light.

#1: ant (agrest272) on Dec 5, 2009 [HINT] [SPOILER]

I was able to solve most of this with logic, except the bottom four red lines.. had to guess on those.

I solved all the green, then all the black. Then I solved the red from row 7 on up. Then I thought I was stuck. But edge logic on the 2 in the bottom row helped. 2-way logic in row 18 on the right side let me place more dots. Then I was able to use edge logic on the 3 in column 15, etc, and then I was able to solve the entire right side. Left side was even tougher. I am not sure if I had to guess or not. I would love gator's step by step to solving the left side of the reds, from row 9 on down. Absolutely a fun puzzle to solve, even up to that point.

I'm leaning towards guessing on the lower left side, but I'm still working on it. I'll let you know.

Column 1 - the 2 clue cannot go on R9C1 as this would make column 2 invalid. R9C1 is a dot. Edge logic to make R10C1 a dot.

Column 5 - if R10C5 is filled in (and R11C5 and R12C5 from the 3 clue), then you will not be able to place the red 1 clue in row 9. So R10C5 is a dot. Note that this is looking 2 moves ahead, but not terribly difficult.

This is all I have for now. I found some looking 3 moves ahead contradictions, but it is pointless to discuss those (as they would be considered guessing).

That's where I was at.

Brian - is there a logical way forward on this one that Adam and I are not seeing?

Wonderful puzzle. Great challenge.

I did not have to guess. I did have to look ahead a few moves, but it really was not all that difficult to see where the red zigzags begin and where they go.

"Not difficult to see," "look ahead a few moves," and "logically solvable" don't always have to equate. They often don't equate. I am glad you found a way. I could not.

Teresa - would you mind describing how you determined where the zigzag went? Thanks!

Well, I look at the red numbers, and I know that 1,2,2 etc. is a zigzag and begins with the 1. I see the 3s that line up one way with the 1s and 2s that go the other way to make a longer zigzag. Like I said, it does entail looking ahead several moves. It took awhile just to get to the point where I could be sure where the zigzag starts. If you want specific steps, I'll have to start over. I'm kinda tied up with my obsession with homophones right now, but I'll go back and look at this one. :-)

Found to require some guessing by Gator.

No, you don't have to go back and solve it. From what I can see, you have to look 3+ moves ahead to figure out the zigzags which is automatically considered guessing. But, based on the picture it should not be hard to guess.

I went back anyway. It does require looking ahead more than just "a few" moves. It just didn't seem like it at the time. I was following the possibilities with my cursor (not filling them in) and that made the contradictions easier to see in my head. But you and Adam are right, it comes down to guessing.

Nice puzzle though.

I look for the place of the red 3 on column 5 and it solved. I don't know if I was lucky or those 3 could only go there.
Love the title + description!

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