Puzzle Description:

A piggybank

#1: Marcus (aanet) on May 17, 2008 [HINT] [SPOILER]

This is solvable, but requires edge logic, color logic, smile logic and a bit of "pattern logic" or "zigzag logic" for the slot on the back. Good luck.

Very fun puzzle! I really like these puzzles that require something other than the usual line-counting strategy to solve. And the fact that it's small means that trying different strategies doesn't feel like too much work.

I agree with Marcus. I solved this, but it required every logic trick on the Advanced Puzzle solving page (except symmetry), often in rather tricky applications, and some tricks that aren't there yet (maybe "zig zag logic" should be, though this is the first time I've ever used it). If you can solve this without guessing, you are a PBN master.

Terrific puzzle and a real workout.

I agree with Meg's comment completely :)

Well, I did solve it. Not sure what techniques I used, though. Logic, intuition, maybe guessing (or educated guessing probably). (Trying to stop and decide which techniques I use is not my bag.)

This puzzle was fun. I made use of the save button when I thought I might be stuck so I knew if I got lost I could come back to that point, which was a point I knew it was right to that point. But I was OK to the end -- didn't have to go back at all.

I had fun with this. I also used the save button at points. I would like to think I solved this using logic alone but I have a feeling a couple would really be considered guessing. Loved it! Thanks

For me, this was work...but I solved it. I always save before I try edge logic when I get to that point. Line and color logic come automatically for me as well as simple edge logic, but this puzzle required more than that.

The bottom and left side came pretty easily. Because that was what filled in for me first, for the longest time I thought it was going to be a scorpion!

It's been a while since I did this, but if I remember right, I was able to solve most of the black, leaving behind the four black 2's in the row clues, and the black 1 2 2 2 1 numbers in the column clues. A little thinking makes clear that this has to be a zig zag diagonal line, but you can't tell if it goes slopes upward or downward. As Alaris said, it's easy to guess that the downward slope is the right answer, but you don't have to guess to solve this puzzle. Instead, notice that the upward and downward diagonal possibilities share a couple cells. These have to be black whichever way the zigzag goes. Just painting those is enough to get you through.

I got the red 2 between the two black 2's by smile logic. In the final image, you can see the smile between the piggy's eyes, but it was a bit of a fancy case to solve because some other cells in some other rows and columns were involved too. Anyway I got to the point where there was nothing but red 1's left in the column clues, and it was just a matter of figuring out how the remaining row blocks could be placed to get one in each column with no overlap. There was only one way to do this, so we were home free.

I think I also had to do some very tricky stuff to get the pig's tail, but I don't remember what it was.

Pig's tail: I remembered Jan's hint from the "Judy" puzzle. If you start with the 3 in the fourth column, you can see that it can't start in the top row because it leaaves no room for the 2 in the second column. Eliminate the square at the top of the fourth column and the rest of the tail falls into place. This also gives you a clean edge in the second row from the top and allows some simple edge logic to get the rest of the top outline: the 5 above the 3 eliminates a lot.

The "slot" was the toughest part for me. I went with eliminating the top right square in the space that's left. If the black 2 goes there, then you'd end up with a 2x2 square and another 2x2 square would have to go under and to the left, and you'd have no room for the black 1 in the ninth column.

Very very tricky! But I'm with Meg. When they're this small I have a lot of patience with tricky. I get really frustrated if I feel like I'm stuck on a huge puzzle.

I had a piggybank that looked like that, but mine was pink...my dog ate it up. lol

My grandmother used a hammer to the piggy bank that looked like this, she then gave the pig with a hole in it to me to fix. It's currently on my shelf...with a hole in it still.

I'm sad this is my last Marcus puzzle. I hope he comes back. Meanwhile, I.m going to miss him!

TCFW!

Really cute puzzle but trial & error combined with pattern logic were the only things that helped me solve after I got stuck. As soon as I figured out what the image was going to be, there was only one direction (logically) to apply the zig zag logic. There were some other places that I solved the clues based on how they related to other parts of the image (pattern logic). It would be difficult to convince me that these did not in some way constitute "guessing."

I guess I don't understand what pattern logic is. Is that the zig-zag? The slot was actually easy for me, once I got the back end of the pig. It was the tail area that proved trickiest. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I do know it was what I think of as "extended two-way logic." Some could call that trial and error, but I think identifying places where you know it's going to go either way is the trick.

Nobody may read this since this is an old puzzle, but I knew at one point, with one of the pixels of the 2 block in C3 already in R4, that the other one would be either in R3 or R5. I tried R3 first, and I needed to follow up on about three or four pixels after that to see that there was a conflict, and it had to be red in R5. From there it was fairly simple, including the zig-zag slot, which I hadn't yet done. That was the only time I used trial and error (I don't think three or four moves ahead is truly trial and error, once you've identified the fork in the road, so to speak, but others may disagree with me).

amazing solve
i would like gator or infrapinklizzard to comment on their specific walkthrough

I focused on where the black could go.

Bottom row - obvious.
Left 2 clue in row 13 can only go in columns 1 and 2.
Also on row 13, R13C16 has to be black.
This makes it so that the black is complete in column 16, so the 2 clues in rows 5-8 cannot go in columns 15-17.
So the only place left for the remaining 1 clues in columns 15 and 17 are in rows 13 and 17. The 1 clue in column 17 has to go in row 13 as it would make row 17 invalid.
So the other 1 clue has to go in R17C15.
After more line/color logic, you should see how you have to make R13C10 black.
Also, looking at column 11 you need to place a black 2, red 2, then black 1. But blacks can only go in rows 5-8 and row 13. So the black 1 is forced into R13C11.

I'm not how much further I can get with line/color logic, so I'm going to switch to advanced. Looking at row 17 - column 9, the 2 clue will be completed with either R17C8 or R17C10. This makes either R19C8 or R19C10 a dot. So this lets us know that R19C10 has to be a dot. More line logic.

Next look at row 14. The right 2 clue has to be completed with either R14C18 or R14C20. Look at how this affects row 12. Either R12C18 will be a red or R12C20 will be a dot. But if R12C18 is red, then R12C20 is a dot. So in either case R12C20 is a dot. More line logic.

I'll have to finish this later, but the puzzle should be a little more than half-way done now.

how on earth did you know that i was asking for this?
i just posted my comment yesterday and you hadnt even seen this puzzle yet as far as i know
thanks though
that was perfect

I had previously solved this one (long time ago).

The next step I see is actually some smile logic. Looking at rows 12 and 13, there are two 1 clues and one 2 clue, respectively. Looking at columns 12-15, we have four 1 clues (one on each column). Hard to see at first, but this is smile logic. More line logic will now finish out the red.

We are left with just some black clues now. It's pretty easy to "see" where they will go, but it would actually be looking many moves ahead to prove it. So let's tackle it a different way.

Looking at row 8, now matter where you place the 2 clue R7C9 and R7C13 are always dots. It will finish normally from there.

So what do we have in this puzzle? Great color logic, two-way logic, smile logic, and affirmation logic all in a compact 20x20 with a great image (IMO). Absolutely stupendous puzzle to solve.

One of the best puzzles I've solved so far.

fun zig zag ending
thx Jan again for highlighting old puzzles

good

Great solve!

Yikes! That was tough. It took me a bit of guess and check to finish this up.

adorable and very tough. I did guess a couple of times.

adorable and very tough. I did guess a couple of times.

Definitely used smile logic at the very end.

This was fun, thanks

A lot of fun, and an unexpected image at the end! But of course it made sense from the title and it was clear what it was. Feels like it should average 4 stars at least.

Goto next topic

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