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I am stuck solving this "Trees and Tents" puzzle. How to solve the rest of the puzzle?

enter image description here

For does who don't know the puzzle, these are the "Trees and Tents" rules:

  • A tent must be placed next to every tree (horizontally or vertically)
  • Tents cannot be next to each other (also not diagonally)
  • The numbers indicate how many tents are in that row/column

Source: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brennerd.grid_puzzle.tents

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  • $\begingroup$ what is the significance of the white and green empty squares? $\endgroup$
    – Jasen
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 23:26
  • $\begingroup$ Sorry, I forgot to mention that, but the white squares still need to be filled to finish the puzzle. You can fill a square with either grass or a tent. So the green squares are grass, meaning that there is no tent at that spot. $\endgroup$
    – Bastiaan van den Berg
    Commented Apr 5, 2020 at 13:33

4 Answers 4

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(Second try, somehow missed an empty cell on the first row in the previous answer...)

On column 8, one of the two bottom cells must be a tent. So we can mark the third cell from the bottom as empty, giving us only one possibility for the tree just above?

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  • $\begingroup$ That's what I was looking for, thanks!! It's always so obvious once you see it... $\endgroup$
    – Bastiaan van den Berg
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 12:24
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One of row 4, column 3&4 must be a tree, therefore r5c4 is blank, and c4 can be filled.

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  • $\begingroup$ Correct! Unbelievable, I have been staring at this for I don't know how long, and this is already the second clue, very impressive. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Bastiaan van den Berg
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 12:29
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Here's another way to continue, though it results in the same moves as the accepted answer:

Column 9 needs one more tent, for one of the trees at R4C8 or R6C8. Therefore the other tree must have its tent in column 7, at R4C7 or R6C7. That means that R5C7 must be blank and R8C7 must have the remaining tent for that column.

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  • $\begingroup$ Same result indeed, but very different reasoning. Interesting, I clearly nead a bit more practice with this puzzle, but this has learned me a lot already :) Thanks also! $\endgroup$
    – Bastiaan van den Berg
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 12:59
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Row 5 has no number associated with it, meaning 0 tents on that row. Once you eliminate the cells on row 5, it is straightforward to continue.

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  • $\begingroup$ I don't think that's the case in general. For example, if you follow the source link given by OP, one of the examples has tents on rows which don't have a number indicated. $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 18:47
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    $\begingroup$ @jafe The sum of the columns must equal the sum of the rows (23 in this case), so since there is only one missing number, it can be deduced. $\endgroup$
    – Jaap Scherphuis
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 19:17
  • $\begingroup$ @JaapScherphuis Ah, didn't think of that. Good point! $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 19:19
  • $\begingroup$ Actually, the row/column sums must also equal the number of trees, so you can have a missing column number too. $\endgroup$
    – Jaap Scherphuis
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 19:30
  • $\begingroup$ I should have mentioned that in my question, but if a row/column number is missing, then it can be any number (they are just hidden to increase the difficulty I guess). Most other puzzles in the app have more hidden values and also 0's as values. It is a bit unfortunate that this puzzle has only one hidden value, and none of the values is 0, which makes it seem like the empty value means 0, but that is not necessarily the case. $\endgroup$
    – Bastiaan van den Berg
    Commented Apr 5, 2020 at 13:41

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