7

After six to eight weeks of waiting, your Shmikoli™ Ambiguous Grid Deduction Puzzle Set has finally arrived!

You tear into the box only to discover that the instructions are missing. You shouldn't have ordered from such a questionable vendor. Still, at the price of one upvote, the item was a steal.

From previous experience, you know that each grid depicts two uniquely solvable grid deduction puzzles. You have no idea which types of puzzles can be solved on which of the three grids, but you resolve to figure it out.

Grid 1

enter image description here

Grid 2

enter image description here

Grid 3

enter image description here

Hint 1

Having exhausted your knowledge of various puzzle types, you consult a helpful website.

Hint 2

In particular, this page and this page seem promising.

Update

I have corrected an error in the first grid. The puzzle types for that grid remain the same.

DyingIsFun
  • 9,176
  • 1
  • 28
  • 74

3 Answers3

5

Partial Answer

Grid 1

Shikakuro:
enter image description here
Kuromasu:
enter image description here

Grid 2

Five Cells:
enter image description here

Grid 3

Nurikabe:
enter image description here

That's all I've found that's unique, and I've gone through all the Nikoli puzzles on their homepage. The only other options I can think of are

1 Kurotto and 1 Sashigane, neither of which seems particularly promising. (Kurodoko leads to a contradiction on 2.)

The other puzzle options from Nikoli (that don't use other elements and have the right amount of clues) are:

Akari (not possible for 1, leads to contradiction on 2 and 3)
Fillomino (too many options for all of them)
Hashi (none are aligned right)
Kurotto (possible for 1, too many solutions for 2 and 3) Numberlink (no pairs)
Nurikabe (used for 3, not workable for 1 or 2)
Sashigane (contradiction on 1, too small clues on 2 and 3)
Shakashaka (too big clues on 1, contradiction on 2 and 3)
Shikaku (used for 1, not possible for 2 and 3)
Slitherlink (too big clues on 1 and 3, too many solutions for 2)

Other possible non-Nikoli-homepage puzzles:

Cave/Corral/BAG, Tapa, Tapa-like loop...

Community
  • 1
Deusovi
  • 146,248
  • 16
  • 519
  • 609
4

Partial Answer

Grid 1:

Range/Rectangle
Range/Rectangle

Grid 2:

Palisade/?
Palisade/?

Sconibulus
  • 19,731
  • 1
  • 45
  • 114
  • Well these are neat :) Thanks for the links so I can learn some new puzzles – n_plum Mar 30 '17 at 16:54
  • Oh, I didn't notice this answer! Sorry if it looks like I was stealing from you - I came up with both of those myself too – Deusovi Mar 30 '17 at 16:55
  • 2
    There is a mistake in your Range solution for the first grid. The 9 only has 8 tiles AND the middle square is ambiguous. Even if fixing the mistake, the middle square will still pose a problem which gives us two possibilities and thus no unique solution. – w l Mar 31 '17 at 09:07
  • @wl, grid 1 was indeed supposed to be a Kuromasu (or Range). I overlooked the fact that the middle square could be either white or black. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to fix it without ruining the Shikaku (or Rectangle). – DyingIsFun Apr 01 '17 at 03:57
  • sorry, fixed Range – Sconibulus Apr 06 '17 at 19:22
  • @Silenus - It's also known as a Kurodoko, and that's exactly how I tried to solve it before noticing the mistake :/ – Deusovi Apr 06 '17 at 19:27
  • @Deusovi and Sconibulus, I have corrected the first grid. The Kuromasu/Range/Kurodoko should be unique now. – DyingIsFun Apr 07 '17 at 00:49
  • 1
    That island solution doesn't seem to work. For instance, the 1 in the bottom left should be a 2, since it can access both white squares above it. It seems like you've solved it as an orthogonal Minesweeper, but in that case it's non-unique. – Deusovi Apr 13 '17 at 16:14
  • Yep I was super wrong, misunderstood how the puzzle works – Sconibulus Apr 13 '17 at 16:39
0

partial answer

Grid 2:

A slitherlink: slitherlink grid 2

Ian MacDonald
  • 12,806
  • 1
  • 33
  • 63