Puzzle Description:

Tree Stump

#1: Gator (Gator) on Aug 21, 2009 [HINT]

This requires the smile logic that alternates and regular smile logic at the end.

Please explain how you logically solved this.

Focus on the bottom two rows and look at the Smile Logic (Example 9) section of the FAQ under Advanced Puzzle Solving Techniques.

I independently developed a proof for this technique on the other site. Click a link below to see my explanation.

http://www.heroglyphix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=276

I was actually able to solve this completely logically. It was actually pretty easy once you got the bottom two rows, which as he said, it's smile logic.

Cool one, easy once you get the bottom two rows.

Thanks all. I made this one when I was trying to find a good way to use the alternating smile logic. I think I'll try to make some more because it is such a cool technique to use. :)

Yep. I had never used this. How would anyone have known to even try that?

awesome logic, that was fun!

Neat! First time I have gotten to use that sort of alternating smile logic for a whole line! Adam, the way I knew to even try that was by remembering what Jan wrote in the FAQ. There's a first time for everything!

Once you get the two bottom lines figured out, this one goes rather easily. Totally logical.

Oh that was really fun logic. I'm so proud of myself cuz I figured it out without looking at the hints. I stared at it for a long time, and then I saw all those 1's at the bottom. They can only fit one way in those bottom two rows. Yeah!

that was extreme. very well done on that added web link.

I just checked out your link, Gator. You refer to this kind of logic above as "alternating smile logic" which makes for a very crooked "smile" - sort of like an aligator's smile. So I think you should call this "gator logic." :-)

LOL #13

Found to be logically solvable by jan.

Oh, this is delightful! A nice demonstration of an uncommon logic technique, and it still comes out as a good image. I constructed a lot of demo puzzles for my advanced puzzle solving technique page, but none of them look like anything. It's really hard to do that, and I'm very impressed.

I've updated the advanced puzzle solving techniques page with a link to this puzzle, as a nice example of extended smile logic.

Gator: there are people who make these puzzles professionally. You are totally in their class.

I think he already does.

I knew it had to be solvable because it's Gator. Took me a while but I did it.

Excellent!

Ditto #14.

I think there are many people on this site and other sites that could do these puzzles on a professional basis.

Thanks all!

There are many excellent puzzles here, but I think you've crossed a line that relatively few designers ever cross. I can make a good looking puzzle, and work on it until it's solvable. But how hard it is, and what techniques it needs to solve, and how much fun it is to solve, that's mostly just something that falls out however it falls out.

To design an image that is simultaneously good looking and requires particular logical approaches to solving, or attains a particular level of difficulty, that takes puzzle design to a whole different level, that I never got to myself. Marz's later puzzles clearly did some of that, and aanet's puzzles may have (I don't know so much about his design process, but the consistency of his results argues for it).

A puzzle like this one doesn't happen by accident. It requires being able to integrate design of the grid as a picture with design of the grid as a puzzle in a really sophisticated way. I'm very impressed.

I don't know how long it would have taken me to figure out the process without hints, but now that I know about it, it was very fun to solve. :)

Ditto #11; but I'll admit the first time I tried this one I was truly "stumped"! I came back to it today and really noticed all the ones at the bottom. From that point it flowed quite smoothly!

#23 - My intention was for the title to have a double meaning -- one to refer to the tree stump, and the other was that you would likely get stumped while trying to solve this puzzle. :)

This one gets an easy 5 stars from me. Nice work. And I'm proud to say I didn't need to look at the FAQ to solve it. :)

Thanks Matt.

A real ah ha! moment in this one and then it solves nicely and at the end, one last stump moment. Gator, this plus your edge puzzle are my two favorites! I enjoy your puzzles!

Thanks Michael.

Alright, I didn't read the Hints, but I did have to read through the regular comments to realize I needed smile logic! Great puzzle Gator! I loved it!!

Thanks Amanda!

amazing
great solve
i have been looking for puzzles with which to use this summing technique
thanks for a great puzzle
jans comments summed it up nicely (pun intended)
haha

Thanks bugaboo.

ditto # 18

solved- logic alone. look at the last two lines.

Great puzzle. Very clear image in a very small space. Thanks.

Ditto EVERYONE - this is a truly great puzzle.

Wow! This is really neat. Great logic, very nice image.

I went a bit of the long way with this, seeing where I could place the 3, constantly creating contradictions in row 14. Then I read the comments afterward and realized what Teresa spelled out.

Goto next topic

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