Yoshi's Islands (knight's path nurikabe)
(Published on 30. September 2024, 05:00 by SkepticalMario)
Yoshi's Islands by Skeptical Mario
Rules:
Nurikabe - shade some cells such that the grid is divided into shaded and unshaded regions, with the following conditions: All shaded cells are orthogonally connected; No 2x2 area is completely shaded; No two unshaded regions are orthogonally adjacent; Each unshaded region contains exactly one number that is the size of the region (? can represent any positive integer).
Knight's move path - In addition, draw a loop that passes orthogonally through the centers of cells; the loop visits every shaded cell and no unshaded cell, and does not branch or cross itself. The loop moves in three-cell segments such that each segment's end cells are a chess knight's move apart. That is, each segment consists of a move one cell in a direction and two cells in a perpendicular direction, or vice versa.
Play the puzzle on Penpa+ (Use green lines or dark gray shading to trigger solution checking).
I hope you enjoy the puzzle! :-)
Solution code: List for each ? clue, in reading order, the size of its region (separated by |pipes|)
Comments
on 1. October 2024, 02:16 by Piatato
Basically the water cells form a chain of L tetrominoes that always overlap by one cell. Nice puzzle!
on 30. September 2024, 22:28 by DeceitfulCake
A very fun solve once you wrap your head around the rules. Didn't realize at first that the loop could touch itself but after that it was a smooth and fun solve.
on 30. September 2024, 11:28 by parqueflick
This was great fun, with a very interesting ruleset! I had been feeling a little down, but this puzzle brought me happiness :)
on 30. September 2024, 11:18 by Dragonslayer
Completed it now. A very creative restriction. I'm sorry that I solved the last few cells intuitively(
on 30. September 2024, 10:45 by SkepticalMario
@Dragonslayer it's not that any two cells on the loop three spaces apart are a knight's move away, but that there exist a set that meets that criteria. So as per your example, cells 1 and 4 may not be a knight's move apart, but cells 2 and 5 might; and then 5 and 8 will be, and so on.
I apologize if this is not clear in the rules.
on 30. September 2024, 10:03 by Dragonslayer
I can't solve it and want to check my understanding of rules. I think if the loop passes through cells numbered 1234 in order with no other cells, then 1 and 4 are a chess knight 's move apart. However the bottomleft corner leads to a contradiction. Could you please help me?
