Puzzle Description:

Sometimes I need to biggen stuff.

#1: bugaboo (bugaboo) on Mar 5, 2011

color logic lets you place the black cross initially and place a lot of dots
edge logic gets you place 1 pixel in each of the blue 5 clues

That's why I attached the handle that way.

I think it took some looking (more than 1 or 2 steps) ahead to get it.

I agree with Telly.

I was able to do everything but the handle with color and some tricky edge logic. The handle requires a sort of two-way logic in that you either 1) put 1 black dot in R12 C12 or 2) place black dots in both R13 C12 and R12 C13. The latter is correct and starts the "stair steps" that lead to the solution, but you can only eliminate the former by looking ahead a number of steps.

And not to be picky, but isn't it "embiggen stuff"? :D

If you count the number of horizontal and vertical black clues you find one too few if it is R12C12. It is the opposite of "smallen"

I was thinking of Homer Simpson and his cromulent word.

To me, having to count is looking ahead, but others may disagree. I still did enjoy this puzzle, though. The lens part was very satisfying to complete.

Nice solve!

Yes, the pizza cutter is one of my favorite tools, as well :)

Is that a new species of butterfly you caught?

Isn't it a metal detector from the top?

After doing the logic that bugaboo describes, look at column 1. There are 3 possible ways that the 5 clue can be places that does not make column 2 invalid. For each case though, notice how R1C2 and R15C2 will be dots every time. So we can mark these as dots. The same logic will let us make R1C14 a dot (but this is a little harder to see unless you just focus on the blue). You cannot make R15C14 a dot as it could be black. This lets us get more dots on row 1 with edge logic. We can now finish out the blue.

I used affirmation logic to make R15C20 and R20C15 dots, but I'm at basically the same point that Liz is.

Brian - could you describe how you are doing this counting? I don't see how that proves that R12C12 has to be blank.

OK I'm talking out of my butt. I was thinking that if R12C12 was black than that would make one dot too few but you can't actually see that until you get to the bottom right corner and get a contradiction. Hence the butt talk so...never mind.

Enjoyed the puzzle. Really like the description!!

Goto next topic

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