I'm going deeper underground... [Snake U-Bahn]
(Published on 1. December 2023, 14:13 by Christounet)
For this puzzle, I imagined a monster snake digging his gallery deep down in the undergrounds of a big town. Hidden behind the walls of the U-Bahn network, he only allows himself to cross the railways very briefly, to avoid being spotted by the crowd of travellers.
While the more complex logic of U-Bahn puzzles still escapes me, I have come to enjoy some of them, especially when they are hybrided with some other puzzle genre. So I had this idea to make one too and here is the result. Testing feedback estimated a 3-4* difficulty. I hope you enjoy !
The puzzle :
Play on Penpa (answer check with grey shading for the snake, and green lines for U-Bahn)
Rules :
- Standard U-Bahn : Draw a loop network through the centers of some cells, which may branch or turn, but may not have any dead ends. Clues to the left and above the grid indicates how many times the corresponding line shape (i.e. a cross, branch, straight line, or turn) appears in the corresponding row or column, irrespective of the line shape's rotation.
- Snake : Travelling through the grid is a snake, moving orthogonally from cell to cell. It may touch itself diagonally but not orthogonally. Its head and tail have to be located. It is not allowed to travel in cells with U-Bahn segments, with one exception : it can cross the U-bahn network only on cells with "straight" U-Bahn segments and cannot take a turn on those segments (see the example below for clarification).
- Snake clues : Clues to the bottom and right indicate the length of the snake segments in the respective column/row, in the right order. If there are clues for a column/row, they are all given. A ”?” stands for a non-zero length. A "..." stands for an unknown numbers of snake segments, including none.
Example puzzle :
Solution code: For each row except the last, the number of lines leading down from that row, followed by the number of times the path of the snake crosses the U-Bahn. (For the example puzzle, that would be : 333323)
Comments
on 22. February 2024, 09:08 by Silverstep
I've been a Christounet fan since the Snakomino trilogy. Best snake setter that I know.
This is a great puzzle for fans of both Snake and U-Bahn genres. I hope it keeps the 100% rating :)
---
@Silverstep : Oh, thank you so much for this great compliment ! I am so glad solving the Snakomino serie is a memorable experience for you, because this serie holds a special place for me as well. The idea of the first puzzle is what triggered my setting career. I have 2 more puzzles for that serie that I started setting months ago but never completed. After reading your comment, it motivates me to finish them to keep that serie going :) Thanks+++
on 19. January 2024, 11:27 by Statistica
Great! THX.
on 29. December 2023, 02:19 by ONeill
Beautiful! Great idea
on 14. December 2023, 00:56 by Piatato
Very nice! Great execution of this fun combination of rulesets. :)
on 9. December 2023, 22:44 by Joe Average
Beautiful puzzle... and solveable upon realizing that it's not standard snake rules. ;-)
Perhaps the example should have shown that as well.
---
@Joe Average : If you are refering to the fact that the snake can touch diagonally, I actually had forgotten that there was a standard definition, because I have already used this custom "can touch diagonally" rule several times in a snake/fillo serie. My apologies for the trouble I may have caused. Glad you enjoyed nonetheless :)
on 7. December 2023, 18:01 by JohnWZA
What a puzzle! Solve path is very smooth! And thank you for this nice and fun puzzle
---
@JohnWZA : Thank you ! Glad you enjoy my puzzles :)
on 4. December 2023, 22:24 by Myxo
Super cool puzzle! :) A very nice combination of rules.
on 4. December 2023, 21:59 by Jesper
Great, was a lot of fun to solve :)
on 2. December 2023, 20:13 by KNT
fantastic!!
on 1. December 2023, 23:52 by Christounet
EDIT : added a missing clue and removed an unnecessary one.
on 1. December 2023, 19:50 by lerroyy
Very smooth, thanks!
on 1. December 2023, 17:30 by Agent
Very nice puzzle! Great combination of rules.
on 1. December 2023, 17:26 by Christounet
Fixed solution code.
