Zombie! (Araf + Yin-Yang)
(Published on 13. April 2025, 17:06 by sfushidahardy)
Zombie!
This puzzle was made for round three of the Pencil Puzzle Madness tournament. I hope you enjoy the puzzle!
- Yin-Yang: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells are orthogonally connected, all unshaded cells are orthogonally connected, and no 2x2 is entirely shaded or unshaded.
- Araf: Divide the grid into orthogonally connected regions, each containing exactly two number clues. The number of cells in each region is strictly between its two number clues.
- Interactions:
- Each Araf region is itself a valid Yin-Yang. In other words, all shaded cells in a region are orthogonally connected, and all unshaded cells in a region are orthogonally connected.
- In each Araf region, one clue is shaded and one clue is unshaded.
- One of the clues in an Araf region gives the exact count of shaded cells in its region. This clue may be shaded or unshaded.
Other puzzles I've made for the tournament:
Round one: Anableps.
Round two: Canyonlands.
Semi-final: Amoeba Festival.
Final: Janus.
Solution code: For each region overlapping the bottom row, the number of cells in that region. (Left to right, one number per region). For the example puzzle, the solution-code would be 48.
Comments
on 28. May 2025, 11:58 by Christounet
Awesome! Thanks :)
on 30. April 2025, 04:37 by askaksaksask
I can see why this is so highly rated. The interaction logic--the global yin yang and the section-specific yin yang--is really inspired, and leads to some great conclusions. The example puzzle does help, but the hardest part for me was training my eye to accept region boundaries that don't line up with the global yin yang shading... Great puzzle. Thank you!
on 28. April 2025, 08:15 by yttrio
Super fun puzzle! It was quite amazing how the geometry just kept getting forced.
on 19. April 2025, 09:22 by Agent
Awesome puzzle!
on 14. April 2025, 22:43 by jessica6
Ha! It works!
on 14. April 2025, 12:54 by Franjo
Fantastic puzzle! Very satisfying how this works although the ruleset seems a bit complicated at first sight. Solving the example helped me to understand. Thank you very much for creating and sharing this masterpiece.
on 13. April 2025, 22:54 by Jesper
Very cool hybrid, thanks!
on 13. April 2025, 18:53 by Niverio
Absolutely gorgeous puzzle!
