Puzzle Description:

the bike tire.

#1: Joe (infrapinklizzard) on Sep 28, 2010 [HINT]

Wow. hard. Although going back, all that's really necessary is edge logic on column 1. Finding that is the hard part, though.

(The top 3 and 2 can only go in one position. After that, it's just line logic.)

Since there are very few 1s in c1, we know the c1 crossing clues must continue into c2. The 3s can go next to the 3s in c2, so the 2 must be next to the 1. Thus the 2 in c1 must cross a horizontal 1 clue. The only one it can cross is in r8, so it is in c1r8-9.

fantastically difficult puzzle
no guessing
definitely advanced edge logic

Found to be logically solvable by Gator.

Excellent technique on the edge logic.

Me loved solving this!!!

That was rough, but I got through it. I knew it had to be C1 and how it affected C2, but I had to go back to it a couple of times to see the logic.

I guessed...pretty much the whole way through.

bravo, Brian

tough but fun ;)

tough! took me a few guesses

Very fabulous puzzle.

You really don't need to guess. You need to look at the first two column and think about how they relate to each other.

First notice that where ever you place a "3" in column one, at least two adjacent cells in column two will have to be filled in. That's because there aren't two row clues starting with "1" next to each other.

So if each of the 3's in column one is going to have two black cells next to it, that means the 3's in column 2 have to overlap the 3's in column one. So what about the "2" in column 1? It's not hard to see that it can't have two cells of a "3" next to it in column two if both of the 3's in column two are already tangled up with the 3's in column one. So only one cell next the the "2" can be black. That means one of the clues for the rows crossing the "2" must start with a "1". There are only three clues that start with "1" and the only one that could possibly be part of the "2" is in row eight. So r8c1 must be part of the "2" clue, and from that you can easily see where the first "3" and the "2" need to be.

I love puzzles where you have to step back and think a bit about the whole puzzle instead of always one line at a time.

outstanding solve

I got Joe's solution after a while and was pleased with myself then was really impressed by Jan's. That's a neat way to look at things. Sometimes even when I solve something I am pretty sure there is a better solution and it's cool when someone does so.

I figured out the column 1 and 2 edge logic. I use edge logic all the time, but I don't remember ever doing edge logic like this before. Neat solve.

Goto next topic

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