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Phistomefel's April Fools Puzzle!
🕑 Added 2022-04-16 09:00:03 +0000 UTCSimon attempted a new puzzle from Phistomefel called ♫ Slitherlink take me home ♫.
Simon did not realise that this puzzle was released on Logic Masters Germany on 1 April 2022. Although very few people will "get" what Phistomefel has done here - we get it and we admire him even more (if that's possible!)
We plan to release this video on the channel in a few days time but we thought we would release it early to our patrons here to give you a sneak peak of what it's all about :) Enjoy!
Simon & Mark
Video: https://youtu.be/HJQAUuy2cAg
Play the puzzle:
https://test.crackingthecryptic.com/sudoku/qQt27GmmF2
Rules:
Draw two closed loops in the grid - a Touching Slitherlink that runs along the edges, and a Country Road that runs from cell centre to cell centre. Neither of the two loops may touch or cross themselves. Not all grid points have to be traversed by the Slitherlink and not all cells have to be visited by the Country Road. Each number is either a Touching Slitherlink clue or a Country Road clue. Both at the same time is also possible. A Touching Slitherlink clue indicates how often the loop touches the edges of the cell containing the clue. The Slitherlink divides the grid into several regions to which the Country Road clues refer. A Country Road clue indicates the number of cells visited by the Country Road in that region. The Country Road passes through each such region exactly once. Cells not visited by the Country Road may be orthogonally adjacent only if they are in the same area. Each region can contain none, one or more Touching Slitherlink clue(s), and each region can contain none or one Country Road clue(s). If a region contains no Country Road clue, an arbitrary number (greater than 0) can be traversed by the Country Road.
In the video, Simon first attempts a Country Road puzzle by Eric Fox to remind himself of the rules of Country Road! You can play this puzzle here:
Rules:
Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of some cells which passes through each region exactly once. A number in a region represents how many cells in the region are visited by the loop. Orthogonally adjacent cells across a region border may not both be unused.
Comments
Not in this puzzle. That was just an example of the kind of joke Phistomefel has played on us
What? How is it a standard sudoku grid?
What you have to do to solve the puzzle could be explained much more simply than the given rules, and most of that is just logic about how the rules interact, not anything in the grid (except for the dimensions and range of clue numbers). It's like if you were given a "chaos construction" sudoku with a huge set of complicated rules describing the properties of the regions, and it turns out that the only arrangement that could have those properties is a standard sudoku grid, and when you draw those boxes, you find that the puzzle is actually very easy.
Could someone explain or even hint at what the joke is here? I’m clueless
Alex Hambrock
About two thirds of the way through I realized what the solution was going to look like and I started cackling
Just funny to me that Simon stares at a grid riddled with 1/4-2022 numbers wondering of it was released on 1/4-2022 😂
