Hybrid Star Battle Series (021) - Look-Air
(Published on 7. June 2023, 23:43 by BenceJoful)
Intro
For this Hybrid Star Battle Series I will be sharing a new puzzle each week combining Star Battle with another puzzle genre. This week's genre is Look-Air.
Look-Air is an interesting genre for many reasons. While the core shading restriction is unique and intriguing, it's also uncommon for clues to affect 5 nearby cells, rather than 4, 8, or 9. While I stuck with the default rule in this puzzle, it did get me thinking about variants. Maybe someone should start a Look-Air variant series, with borders, line clues, and more!
Rules
Standard Look-air and Star Battle (Regionless) rules apply, where stars must be shaded.
- Look-Air: Shade some cells so that each orthogonally connected area of shaded cells is in the shape of a square. Clues represent how many of the five cells forming a cross around the clue (including itself) are shaded. Two shaded squares of the same size may not have a vertical or horizontal line of unshaded cells between them, unobstructed.
- Star Battle (Regionless): Place stars into some shaded cells such that each row and column contains exactly 2 stars (1 star in the example). Stars may not touch one another, not even diagonally.
Links
6x6 1-star Example (Penpa+ link):
Solution code: Along row 6, then column 6: if the cell has a star, give *. Otherwise give S for shaded or U for unshaded. In the above example, the solution code is SSUU*U U*UUUU.
