Puzzle Description:

The shrug emoji: Where are all the new puzzles?

#1: Kristen Vognild (kristen) on Aug 14, 2017

http://emojipedia.org/shrug/

I haven't had any ideas lately to contribute, but I thought up something at work today. Nothing special; just another character. But you do raise a good question. I was also wondering why no new puzzles have been added for a few days.

It's interesting how people's habits change. I remember how I used to look forward to the weekends because that's when the most new puzzles would pop up. For quite some time now I have noticed that the weekends are often the slowest.

Happily, 2 new puzzles have cropped up since I posted mine. :)

Love it! I've got some ideas, but since I have no experience, it's gonna take awhile before I have time to figure it out.

Very good. After I realized it was 85% symmetrical and using edge logic, it took me about 15 minutes to solve it.

Oooh. good one, Kristen. Tricky solve.

I'll make some new puzzles when I'm not so overwhelmed with three jobs. Retiring soon from one of them. Yay.

Very cute. Didn't get it til the very end.

After the initial LL, EL on R10 will make R10C1 a dot by seeing how R8 is affected. R10C2-7 will be dots by simple EL. The same can be done on the other side to make R10C34-40 dots. Two more dots with LL.

EL on R1 makes R1C6-8 and R1C33-35 dots.

I'm not sure how to move past this point logically. I'll come back to this one.

picking up where gator left off, i've found a couple more things, but still not done either:

the second 6 in R10 can't start in C22 or it violates R8, so C28R10 is black

The 3 in C6 can't start in R2 because (internal edge logic) it triggers a 1-2-1 clue combo with no 1 clue in either adjacent column. same with C35R2.

If the second 5 in R1 is all the way right, it triggers the last 1 in R2, so the 2 next to it can't include C32. If it's not all the way to the right, C32R1 will be a dot anyway.

...and back to you gator!

Found a way forward from there.

Look at the 4 clue in C23. If it is placed in R7-10, this means at least 4 blacks will need to be filled in between C22 and C24. But there is only a 2 and 1 clue in those columns respectively. So R8-10C23 are dots using this. LL

Now look at the 3 clue in C18. If you imagine it somewhere in R5-8, you cannot fill in enough blacks in C17 and C19. So the 3 clue must be in R1-3. LL

R1C17 cannot be black as it would make it part of the left 5 clue in R1. If you fill in from the right, R1C18 would have to be part of the 2 clue (it would violate R2 with edge logic in C20-23). So R1C17 must be a dot.

The left 5 clue in R1 cannot be at R1C15 without making R10 invalid. It also cannot be at R1C14 without making R1 invalid. Now consider that 5 at R1C9-13. This makes R1C14 a dot and R1C15 black. If you look at how R10 would be affected, this would force the 6 clue to the left, makings C9-13 invalid. So the left 5 clue has to go in C1-5. LL to finish.

Only took 3 years. :)

Nice puzzle!

Found to be solvable with moderate lookahead by gator.

great job gator!!
hopefully you took some breaks for sleep and/or food!

Hahahaha!

I have other ones in my saved list that go back to 2007...someday I'll get to them all. :)

I know THAT feeling!

Goto next topic

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