Galactic Orbit
(Published on 10. March 2025, 00:32 by Sniglett)
Draw several loops by drawing lines orthogonally through the centers of some cells such that each loop surrounds exactly one black circle. Loops must be rectangular. Loops can intersect, but cannot share an edge or corner. Lines cannot cross black circles. Each white circle must be visited by at least one loop path. Each loop must have different dimensions (including rotation).
Additionally, within each loop (including the cells that the loop passes through), shade some cells such that it is 180* rotationally symmetrical about the center of the loop.
All shaded cells must form one orthogonally connected region, and no 2x2 region may be entirely shaded or unshaded.
Cells containing a white dot are unshaded. Cells containing a black dot are shaded. Cells that are not contained within any loops are shaded.
Solution code: Number of unshaded cells in each row
Comments
on 24. April 2025, 05:13 by askaksaksask
Stellar puzzle! You create some really wonderful hybrids, and the constraint/ interaction logic here is really beautiful. a really, really fun solve. This is a must-do for the 2025 pencil canon. Thank you for this!!
on 14. March 2025, 00:53 by wisty
Beautiful puzzle! Fascinating ruleset - it is clearly worded but also a bit easy to misread or miss something at first. I found this fairly approachable too! Or at least, as approachable as a galaxy shading ring ring variant can be.
on 11. March 2025, 10:49 by jessica6
Good puzzle. I had trouble because I interpreted "not contained with any loops" with "not part of any loop" (only cells outside of any loop must be shaded, empty cells inside a loop may be shaded or unshaded)
on 11. March 2025, 01:19 by ONeill
That was fun, thanks :)
on 10. March 2025, 15:47 by jessica6
different dimensions (including rotation) means that a n*m and a m*n loop are not allowed simultaneously (if m <> n), right?
________
MxN and NxM are the same dimensions, however 2x6 and 3x4 have the same area but different MxN dimensions. Hope this helps!
on 10. March 2025, 14:45 by ONeill
That was fun, thanks :)
on 10. March 2025, 00:46 by sfushidahardy
Great puzzle! Really bizarre solving experience for me--it felt like nothing else I'd solved before.
(Also, make sure to read the rules carefully. It looks like yin-yang but it's not.)
on 10. March 2025, 00:35 by Sniglett
Image fixed.
on 10. March 2025, 00:34 by Sniglett
Image removed
