Puzzle Description:

Bele in Star Trek, episode 70. A commentary on racism.

#1: Joe (infrapinklizzard) on Mar 24, 2010 [HINT] [SPOILER]

I'm afraid this might be another "bleeding edge" puzzle. You must look ahead four-ish steps, but (in my opinion) they're easy enough to visualize.

After line solving, you can do some edge logic on the 4 in column 15. It cannot be in rows 1-3. With extended edge logic it can't be in rows 12-15 as it would cause the 3 in row 14 to conflict with column 13's clues.

Therefore it must be in r4-11 -- too wide to place any pixels. However, no matter where you place the 4, the 6 in column 14 must cover r6-9. That makes the rectangle of c9r7-c12r9 all white. Also c14r1-3 and r12-15 are white.

This allows you to use edge logic on the 3 in row 1 to positively place it.

More line logic will get you this far: http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gxrQaC0

Here's the look-ahead:
That last 1 in c8 can go in one of two places: row 13 or 15.
Given the 1 in row 13,
(1) r13c9 is white.
(2) That means the 2 in c9 must be in r14-15.
(3) That puts the 3 in r 14 from c9-11.
(4) The 2 in r15 is now blocked as c8 is white from our first given and c10 is by step 3.
Therefore c8r13 is white and the rest solves with line logic.

I'm not sure why you are saying you have to look so far ahead when looking at c8. This is more of a two-way logic. If R13C8 is filled in, then R13C9 is a dot. If R15C8 is filled in, then again R13C9 is a dot. Two possibilities, same result for R13C9.

Found to be logically solvable by Gator.

does guessing count as advanced color logic?? cute puzzle!!!

holy mama, i think you might've looked a bit too hard at this one joe, haha. i'm with gator here, there was some cool 2-way logic, especially in R14/15 with the 6/4 clues, but i never looked more than 1-2 steps ahead. I guess it's possible I took a guess at a point where I thought I was placing logically though.. definitely a fun solve either way.

I agree with And and Gator. I did not have to look 3-4 steps ahead. Using edge logic after the initial steps resulted in 1 failed try and then it solved using the clues.
As a Trekkie I enjoyed this puzzle.

I solved it the same was as Joe had explained the first 3/4, but I also did the same 2-way logic as Gator mentioned toward the end. Ditto the "fun solve" comment.

good solve

That was hard!

I admit that I was intimidated when I saw the title. I am slowly starting to see the "higher logic" in these puzzles (only took me a year). Anyway, I was able to solve logically by looking further ahead than I ever have before. My brain hurts now, thank you very much. Well done!

Very nice puzzle design, Joe. It made me a little crazy there for awhile. I managed to figure out the edge logic to get to the same place as the image you shared, but then I was stuck. I looked at the either-or situation in C8 for a long time, but I didn't see then what is obvious now. It was great fun to solve. But it would be more fun if I could have figured it out by myself. Well, next time I am stumped, I'll have my morning coffee FIRST, before I check the hints. :-)

I always enjoy a Trekkie puzzle. Here's the background for those who are not familiar with Bele:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_That_Be_Your_Last_Battlefield

Is he the half-black or the half-white?

i liked solving ythis puzzle a lot

Fun

i guess this is one of those few puzzles that just sort of clicked for me...no trouble at all with a bit of edge and two-way logic and didn't feel i was looking ahead at all. was NOT expecting the difficulty-comments. just funny because it is more common for me to struggle and then read in the comments about how it solves easily...

Yahoo, I did it without looking at the hints, I'm getting better at this solving, great puzzle Joe :)

Thanks, everyone.

I don't know why I never got back to answering this one. The two-way is definitely easier than my method.

I remember seeing this episode (as a re-run) as a small child, so I didn't understand the metaphor they were making. However, it may have instead been formative to my viewpoint.

I just started re-watching the 1960s Batman series, and thought the Riddler looked familiar (other than my memories of Batman, that is). A quick trip to IMDB, and I find out that he was the actor for Bele. "Ah," I thought, "that explains why Bele rang a bell when I was watching Star Trek a few years ago!"

fun puzz, Joe!

Thanks, Kurt

Nice fun, hard small puzzle. Puzzles like this one are my favorite.

Thanks, Mr. Hertz.

I guess because I knew the episode and what it had to look like, I found this puzzle rather easy. I often have to use trial and error with the "check" button, but didn't have to use it at all with this one.

Goto next topic

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