Puzzle Description:

A gift from me to you

#1: Jota (Jota) on Dec 11, 2008

Thanks for the gift !

I had to use edge logic for the vein of the bottom leave, after that I continued w/o problems. No guessing.

nice pic! good job and good luck!

Congratulations on your prize, this puzzle was cute and fun to solve.

sweet gift, nice puzzle

I could not solve the lower portion of the upper right leaf and some of the lower leaf without guessing. The guesses were logical in that the edges of the leaves followed certain patterns, but they were guesses none-the-less.

This puzzle got high marks from me both on quality and difficulty. The image is very nice but to my thinking, any puzzle that needs guessing has a high difficulty.

Found to require some guessing by Gator.

I could not find a way to logically tackle the bottom leaf (and the rest of the right leaf).

Jota - can you explain how you used edge logic on the bottom vein? Maybe I'm missing something.

Gator: I wish I could remember, but my memory does not serve me right. I'll try to solve it again to see if I come up with the solution. I'll keep you posted.

This is going to be a very long comment, and I will explain how I figured out the puzzle logically. I had to think several steps forward at a few points, so I'm not sure if it's really considered logically solvable, but I managed it without guessing. If there are any questions, just comment and I'm glad to explain. I'm also curious to know whether this gets officially changed to "no guessing needed". Otherwise, it's a very pretty puzzle. :)

I got as far as I could without guessing (this means that the upper right leaf is almost completely finished, just missing the bottom bit). If you look at the horizontal 1 1 3 1 in row 31, you can logically get the first two 1’s. you should also have a green block in R31 C23, which can either be the 1 or part of the 3. If you assume that it’s the 1, then the 3 has to be in R31 C19-21. If you look at the vertical results and row 32, that would put a dot in R32C20 and a green block in R32C21. Then R32C22 has to be either a dot, which gives a 1 that shouldn’t be there, or a green block, which would give a 4 that shouldn’t be there. Thus, R21C19-20 should be dots, and you can work from there.

Next look at how in column 18, the green 2 below the red 6 is the last thing to place, and that can be somewhere in R32-35. If it’s in R34-35, then R35C20 is a dot (we already know that R35C19 and C21 are dots). That means that column 20 is done, since we can place the last 2 dots. Row 34 has the 3 extending in C20-22, which finishes column 21. Now we can’t place the 3 in row 32, because R32C18 and C21 are dots, but C20 is a green block. Thus, this arrangement is impossible, and R35C18 is a dot, and R33C18 is a green block!

Then look at row 32. The two green block in C23-24 are either the 2 or part of the 3. If we assume that they are a part of the 3, then C18-21 are dots. That pushes two green blocks down into R34C18-19, which is impossible, so the green blocks are the 2, and we can put dots around it and fill in R32C19-20!

Now look at row 33. There are two 2’s, and there’s a green block in C24. If the first two is squeezed in R33C21-22, the rest of column 22 is dots, so R31C24 is a green block, so R35C24 is a dot, and so the green block in R35C23 is the 1 of that row, so R35C20 is a dot. Thus, R34C20 is a green block, but it has to be the 1 of that row because there’s not enough room for it to be the 3. So R34C18 has to be a dot, and R32C21 is a dot, which is impossible now. Therefore, R33C21-22 are dots! After this, you can get a ways further using regular logic.

Then I shifted my focus, and saw that if R40C27 was a dot, then R38C26-27 were both green blocks, so that was impossible and R40C27 had to be a green block.

If R38C26 is a dot, then the rest of that row is pushed out, and R40C30, C31 and C34 are dots, which makes row 40 impossible, so R38C26 has to be a green block. Go a little further with normal logic.

Next we look at R38C31. It’s part of one if the green 2’s. If it’s a green block that extends the 2 to the left into R38C30, the other 2 has to be in R38C33-34, which leaves R40C31 and R40C34 as dots, making row 40 impossible. If it’s a green block that extends the 2 to the right into R38C32, the other 2 has to be in R38C28-29. This puts a dot in R39C32 and R38C30, making the bottom 2 in column 30 impossible. Therefore, R38C31 has to be a dot! Go a little further with normal logic.

Now I looked at the upper right leaf (I had it mostly finished). In row 22, I had C27-29 and 31 filled in. If I assume that C30 is a dot, I know that R22C34 and R25C34 are also dots, and since R22C26 is a green block, R25C26 is a dot. This makes row 25 impossible, so we know that R22C30 is a green block!

From there, you can solve it with regular logic!

I had an intricate solution typed out, but a later click of "check" told me I had an error, so I don't know how I eventually did this! I may have to try this again from scratch and figure it out! I did have to resort to guessing, however, so I believe that is correct.

As Bryan pointed out on another early puzzle, probably the addition of just a few more pixels would have made this puzzle solvable without guessing. My guess is that making the bottom row 5 Blue, 3 Green, 2 Blue, 3 Green and 4 GREEN would make it work.

Love the holly. Lovely image. Thanks.

Goto next topic

You must register and log in to be able to participate in this discussion.