Skip to main content
First line update after correction made in other answer
Source Link
Stiv
  • 146.1k
  • 11
  • 519
  • 779

With one teensy correction to the final slitherlink (EDIT: Now corrected!), @kristinalustig has already solved this puzzle. However, I thought it would be beneficial to provide something a little more step-by-step to supplement her excellent answer, so that anybody following along and getting stuck would have a resource to guide them through...

- Use the logic of the green 3 in the top-left to resolve the whole top-left corner.
- The white 3 (R3C6) being diagonal to the white 2 permits some more deductions. In particular, the path must go up the left-hand-side of the white 2 to avoid producing an odd number of loose ends in the top right section (which would make it impossible to resolve).
- Orange 1 in row 1: Path segment must be on its right-hand-side. The path int hein the top-right section can now be fully resolved using the logic of the 1's.
- Black 1 in middle of row 2: Must be passed to the south. Then the adjacent yellow 1 likewise.
- The remainder of the path can be solved through forced logic and the puzzle is conquered at last!!

enter image description here

This puzzle was EPIC! It took hoursHOURS to solve in its entirety and shows such a huge amount of thought and craftsmanship in its design and execution. I am seriously impressed! Huge kudos to @kristinalustig for being first to get an answer. I encourage everybody interested in grid-deduction puzzles to give this one a try - it's one of the best combination-puzzles I have come across not just on this site but anywhere (and I mean that)...

With one teensy correction to the final slitherlink, @kristinalustig has already solved this puzzle. However, I thought it would be beneficial to provide something a little more step-by-step to supplement her excellent answer, so that anybody following along and getting stuck would have a resource to guide them through...

- Use the logic of the green 3 in the top-left to resolve the whole top-left corner.
- The white 3 (R3C6) being diagonal to the white 2 permits some more deductions. In particular, the path must go up the left-hand-side of the white 2 to avoid producing an odd number of loose ends in the top right section (which would make it impossible to resolve).
- Orange 1 in row 1: Path segment must be on its right-hand-side. The path int he top-right section can now be fully resolved using the logic of the 1's.
- Black 1 in middle of row 2: Must be passed to the south. Then the adjacent yellow 1 likewise.
- The remainder of the path can be solved through forced logic and the puzzle is conquered at last!!

enter image description here

This puzzle was EPIC! It took hours to solve in its entirety and shows such a huge amount of thought and craftsmanship in its design and execution. I am seriously impressed! Huge kudos to @kristinalustig for being first to get an answer. I encourage everybody interested in grid-deduction puzzles to give this one a try - it's one of the best combination-puzzles I have come across not just on this site but anywhere (and I mean that)...

With one teensy correction to the final slitherlink (EDIT: Now corrected!), @kristinalustig has already solved this puzzle. However, I thought it would be beneficial to provide something a little more step-by-step to supplement her excellent answer, so that anybody following along and getting stuck would have a resource to guide them through...

- Use the logic of the green 3 in the top-left to resolve the whole top-left corner.
- The white 3 (R3C6) being diagonal to the white 2 permits some more deductions. In particular, the path must go up the left-hand-side of the white 2 to avoid producing an odd number of loose ends in the top right section (which would make it impossible to resolve).
- Orange 1 in row 1: Path segment must be on its right-hand-side. The path in the top-right section can now be fully resolved using the logic of the 1's.
- Black 1 in middle of row 2: Must be passed to the south. Then the adjacent yellow 1 likewise.
- The remainder of the path can be solved through forced logic and the puzzle is conquered at last!!

enter image description here

This puzzle was EPIC! It took HOURS to solve in its entirety and shows such a huge amount of thought and craftsmanship in its design and execution. I am seriously impressed! Huge kudos to @kristinalustig for being first to get an answer. I encourage everybody interested in grid-deduction puzzles to give this one a try - it's one of the best combination-puzzles I have come across not just on this site but anywhere (and I mean that)...

Source Link
Stiv
  • 146.1k
  • 11
  • 519
  • 779

With one teensy correction to the final slitherlink, @kristinalustig has already solved this puzzle. However, I thought it would be beneficial to provide something a little more step-by-step to supplement her excellent answer, so that anybody following along and getting stuck would have a resource to guide them through...

Notation: Throughout this explanation I will use grey fill to indicate shaded cells and pale blue fill to indicate confirmed unshaded cells. For the slitherlink, correct line segments will appear in black; clues will have a small tick beneath them if confirmed correct by the other grid puzzles, a red cross through them if confirmed incorrect by the other grid puzzles, or a red circle around them if the unfolding slitherlink logic shows them to be incorrect and thus useful for resolving the other grid puzzles.

Step 1:

First solve as much of the nonogram, nurikabe and kakurasu as possible until you get stuck without any further logic. Simultaneously augment the slitherlink to show which clues have been proved correct or incorrect, solve as much as you can and then circle the clues that the slitherlink logic shows to be incorrect - this will be used in the next step. At this point your grids should look as follows:

enter image description here

Step 2:

Consider the kakurasu...

Thanks to the two incorrect clues circled on the bottom row, we can make some deductions about the kakurasu that allow us to resolve:
- The entire bottom row (R9C7 must be unshaded; since R9C3 is already shaded we must also leave R9C1 and R9C2 unshaded to total 35 for the row; shade the rest),
- R8C4 (unshaded, since 8+9>16, exceeding the column total),
- The rest of row 8 then follows (R8C2 must be unshaded, the rest shaded to total 39 for the row),
- R6C8 (unshaded, since the column total would exceed the target of 29 if shaded),
- Much of column 1 (anything contributing a value of more than 3 to the column total would exceed the target of 11).

We can also confirm the bottom right-most corner of the nurikabe to be unshaded, for what it's worth!

Importantly, we can also make some progress with the slitherlink by indicating which clues are confirmed correct or incorrect, reaching a contradiction in R9C5.

enter image description here

Step 3:

Now let's turn our attention to the nonogram...

The circled slitherlink clue at the end of the last step must be incorrect, meaning that R9C5 must be unshaded in the nonogram. This one piece of information now lets us resolve the entire nonogram!

(Via the following: forced logic in the bottom left section, column 1, R2C5, thus all of row 2, some of row 1, some in row 5, all of column 7, all of row 6, R4C6 must be shaded, R5C7 must be unshaded, all of row 5, column 6, row 1, column 5, and the rest follows!)

enter image description here

Step 4:

Meanwhile we can also make more progress with the kakurasu...

To hit the total of 31 in row 6, everything except R6C5 needs to be shaded. We can now shade all remaining cells in column 9 and everything in column 7 with a value greater than 3. In column 4, the 1 must be shaded and the rest left unshaded to hit the total of 16, and all remaining cells in row 7 must be shaded to hit the total of 24.

All of this produces a single contradiction in the slitherlink clues, which we will use next (the yellow 3, circled)...

enter image description here

Step 5:

Now for the nurikabe, which we can solve in its entirety from this single slitherlink contradiction...

- R6C5 must be unshaded, which must be reached by the 6-shape. This has a knock-on effect as there are now other squares that the 6 (or any other number) cannot reach - shade these.
- Resolve the bottom of column 3 through forced logic.
- To link the bottom-left section of the grid to the rest of the path we need to extend the path right the way up the space in column 1. This in turn resolves the nearby 4-shape.
- R4C5 must be shaded for connectedness.
- R3C6 must be unshaded - we need to avoid making two complete 2x2 squares of path to the right of the 3 in column 7. If we did this by leaving both its 'north-west' and 'south-west' neighbours unshaded, we would break the connectedness of the path - the only solution is to 'unshade' the space to its left.
- To avoid isolating the path down the RHS we need to add some path by forced logic to the right of the grid, simultaneously helping us to resolve the shapes of the 6 and the remaining 4.
- The rest follows with the requirement that R2C7 must be unshaded to prevent forming a 2x2 square.

Augment the slitherlink with new knowledge about confirmed correct and incorrect clues, and follow the logic to complete the path in the bottom-left section of the grid.

enter image description here

Step 6:

Just the kakurasu remaining then...

- R5C2 and R5C3 must be shaded because of the logical contradictions circled in the slitherlink at the end of the last step.
- R5C6 must be shaded for a row total of 11.
- The remainder of column 6 must be unshaded, as the column total of 35 has now automatically been hit.
- R4C8 must be shaded to bring row 4's total to 13.
- R1C8 must be shaded for column 8 to total 29 (rest unshaded).
- R1C1 and R1C3 must be unshaded, as 1 and 3 cannot be used in combination with other available numbers to make up the remaining row total's difference.
- R3C1 must be shaded (and R2C1 unshaded) for a column total of 11.
- R2C3 must be shaded no matter what combination of numbers is used to make the row total - it's a vital component of both possible sums.
- R3C3 must be shaded to total 40 for the column.
- R4C5 must be shaded (and R4C2 unshaded) for a column total of 13.

We then have three 3x1 cell blocks that cannot yet be resolved, as each row requires an additional total of 7 (either 2+5 or 7 alone) and each column requires an additional total of 3 (either 1+2 or 3 alone) - we cannot yet tell which it will be. Thankfully resolving the slitherlink a little more throws up another contradiction (circled in row 1)...

enter image description here

Step 7:

Consider that slitherlink contradiction...

This means that R1C7 must be unshaded in the kakurasu. Which means that R1C2 and R1C5 must be shaded, which then allows us to deduce the whole of rows 2 and 3 as well!

Now we have a complete picture of which clues in the slitherlink are real and which are fake.

enter image description here

Step 8:

Time to resolve that slitherlink in its entirety!

- Use the logic of the green 3 in the top-left to resolve the whole top-left corner.
- The white 3 (R3C6) being diagonal to the white 2 permits some more deductions. In particular, the path must go up the left-hand-side of the white 2 to avoid producing an odd number of loose ends in the top right section (which would make it impossible to resolve).
- Orange 1 in row 1: Path segment must be on its right-hand-side. The path int he top-right section can now be fully resolved using the logic of the 1's.
- Black 1 in middle of row 2: Must be passed to the south. Then the adjacent yellow 1 likewise.
- The remainder of the path can be solved through forced logic and the puzzle is conquered at last!!

enter image description here

Concluding remarks:

This puzzle was EPIC! It took hours to solve in its entirety and shows such a huge amount of thought and craftsmanship in its design and execution. I am seriously impressed! Huge kudos to @kristinalustig for being first to get an answer. I encourage everybody interested in grid-deduction puzzles to give this one a try - it's one of the best combination-puzzles I have come across not just on this site but anywhere (and I mean that)...