Chocona Road
(Published on 15. May 2024, 04:57 by mathpesto)
Rules:
Country Road: Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of some cells which passes through each region exactly once. Any pair of orthogonally adjacent cells across a region border must have at least one of the cells visited by the loop.
Chocona: Shade some cells so that each block of orthogonally connected shaded cells forms a rectangle. (Yes, a square is a type of rectangle.)
A given clue represents the number of loop cells (country road) or shaded cells (chocona) in that region, or possibly both. A “? ?” in a cell means the two clues have the same value.
For those unfamiliar with chocona, here is a link to an explanation/example on puzzlink.
Solve online:
Solution code: Shading of cells in Column 3 (S = shaded, U = unshaded; 15 letters, top to bottom) (e.g. UUSSSUSUSUSSUSS)
Comments
on 18. May 2024, 12:17 by zhall12570
Wow! So hard but very glad to have finished it; took me nearly 3 hours.
on 18. May 2024, 00:36 by MaizeGator
This one was brutally tough for me. My brain kept insisting that it knew where to start the puzzle, but none of the obvious break-in spots were quite constrained enough.
I ended up starting in a very strange place, and felt uneasy about it the whole solve. Would love to see how a better solver than me tackles this one!
on 17. May 2024, 07:47 by nottabird
Do the shaded cells in each region have to be orthagonally connected?
——-
They do not. -Math Pesto
on 15. May 2024, 21:55 by Aspartagcus
Took a while to get into how to solve it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction between the two rulesets once I got a hold of it. Really well set puzzle!
on 15. May 2024, 17:49 by Jesper
Enjoyed it a lot, thanks!
