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#1: Jan Wolter (jan) on May 6, 2006

I did some checking with the help of the helper, and was able to demonstrate that this is indeed solvable and has a unique solution. I haven't had time yet to do the whole solution manually though. A very impressive puzzle, especially for a first post.

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Finally finished it. That's one stunning puzzle.

I give up!! I've spent hours on this puzzle. Started over several times. Each time I get about half done and those nasty red dots start showing up. Bummer.

You're not alone. As of the moment, only 5 of the 15 saved games for this puzzle were completed. It's fairly hard going, and you have to go for a long time picking up just a pixel here or a pixel there. Easy to slip up. I got into red dot land once but was able to fix it up.

One trick I use in hard puzzles is to try each cell that I think I can color with the wrong color first. In most cases, I should see a red dot when the color is wrong. If I don't, then either (1) my guess for that cell was wrong or (2) the guess was based on reasoning that involved more than one row or column clue. Using the red balls to help check my every move helps keep me from going astray.

It's kind of cheating, I guess. But in my editorial role, I feel obligated to solve all the puzzles posted here, and I'm not really the best solver in the world, so these large, difficult puzzles can be a huge time sink for me. I don't go "fishing" by clicking random cells to see if they give a red ball, but I suppose if I was a purist, I'd turn off the error checker.

I do feel like a bit of a cheater having the error checker on, but it is SOO helpful, I leave it on. I don't actually use it like you described, but I suppose I shouldn't be such a perfectionist and just consider it another way to solve a difficult puzzle.

I was thinking that on a hard one like this puzzle it would be nice to have the option of a third color (say red) available, so when I start guessing a little I could mark boxes in red, so if it doesn't work out I would know what to erase.

I just want to say that I love this website and think you have set it up wonderfully well.

Dave, if you want your kids to get any attention at all, I'd suggest next time designing a less intriguing, difficult, addicting puzzle. Love, Bobbie BTW-great job!

Wow, this is a great puzzle. Took me two days. Thanks!

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Wonderful puzzle. Made one false guess, but second time got it right and it went smoothly from there. I did it on paper because I surf at the library and don't have time to do them on screen. This is what a puzzle should be. Challenging but solvable with beautiful results.
After filling in the obvious in top 1/3 of picture, I guessed that near the top that 5 or 6 of the right most colums were blank.

Whew! That was almost like work! Great puzzle!

Great puzzle.
First puzzle... WOW

Neat picture.

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i love that im not the only one "cheatting" like that. I agree with Gitte ist just lazyness (if thats a word).

BTW beautyfull picture and great puzzle - all in all good combo.

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hihi mori good excuse... wish I thought of that one

It is easy to come up with such an excuse if you look at a screen full of fingerprints:-)

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I liked solving this again. Fun puzzle. Not too hard.

Wow! Had to print the grid out 3 times, but finally finished it! This puzzle was grrrrreat!

Once again going back into the "saved puzzles" area... Opened this up, and there was not one square solved in it... Completely blank! I guess maybe it was too big? I dunno. Anyway, a little tough, but a lot of fun! Thanks!

I started this one a while back and let it sit in my saved puzzles. I went back to it last week and had it 2/3s of the way solved, to the point I could recognize the image, when I ran into an error I couldn't resolve. I cleared it and started over and, wow, well worth it. A beautiful puzzle that feels like I really accomplished something when I finished.

Ditto #s 9 & 10, btw.

I also had this one in my saved puzzles for awhile. Finally found the time (and patience) to finish. Excellent picture!

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fantastic.

Ahem . . . this puzzle is not perfectly symmetrical. J/K I love it!

Wooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

after initial line logic: all you have to do is use edge logic on the 15 clue in c1 to dot c1r39-50 and it solves out with line logic
excellent image

I can tell by the comments that this puzzle was created before the L key was introduced.

It reminds me of the LSU tiger logo. http://images.comcorpusa.com/440/0/crop/nbc33tv/media/sports/LSU_new_fox_web.jpg

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solved twice. relatively easy.

I loved the image and had a really tough time solving the puzzle.

The only issue I had is that the site won't let you shrink the screen enough to see the #s at the top and the cells at the bottom, so I ended up liberally using the hint function just to speed up the process.

you can hit the arrow keys to move the clues from top to bottom (and whether they are top/bottom justified)...same for left and right. hope that helps!

You can also go full screen - usually f11.

Tough puzzle but no guessing. Beautiful!

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solved again.

Nice puzzle! Enjoyed solving it!

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