[PAC] Portal Permaculture
(Published on 17. October 2025, 01:28 by The Book Wyrm)
This puzzle was created for the second round of the Puzzle Agent Championship (PAC) setting tournament. The prompt was to create a puzzle that uses two 3x3 clones.
Rules:
- Divide the grid into two orthogonally connected areas. One area follows tapa rules, the other follows lohkous rules.
- Tapa: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells are orthogonally connected and no 2x2 area is entirely shaded.
Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells in the (up to) eight cells surrounding the clue.
- Lohkous: Divide the grid into orthogonally connected regions, each of which contains exactly one clued cell.
Each vertical strip and horizontal strip in a region must have a length equal to one of the numbers in that region's clue. Each number in that region must be represented by at least on vertical or horizontal strip.
Clues may not contain repeated digits.
- ?s represent an unknown integer.
- The 3x3 area in the centre of the grids acts as a portal between the two grids - the cells in each 2x2 must be filled in the same, and count as the same cells for the purposes of clues and connectivity. i.e. if two lohkous regions both touch the same cell of the clone, then they are considered to be one region, and only require one clue which applies to both disconnected parts of the region, and both the lohkous/tapa areas and the shaded tapa cells can be connected through the clone.(Region borders, including those on the boundary of the 3x3, are also copied).
For aditional clarity an example of a valid grid has been given (with a 2x2 clone). Note that the shaded tapa cells connect through the clone, and are thus considered connected throughout the puzzle.
Main Puzzle:
Penpa link:
Click Here
Solution code: For each row of the right grid, first the number of lohkous regions then the number of shaded tapa cells. (For the example this would be 211313131121)
Last changed on on 24. October 2025, 18:58
Solved by MattYDdraig, sfushidahardy, Christounet, Agent, Nell Gwyn, Silverbyte, Mark Sweep, Jesper, ns08
Comments
on 18. October 2025, 10:35 by Silverbyte
Brilliant puzzle. Took a bit to wrap my head around the lohkous rules (be sure to study the example) but what an absolute blast to solve this was.
on 17. October 2025, 09:09 by Agent
Very original connectivity logic in this one, and the Lohkous genre was a cool discovery!
on 17. October 2025, 07:16 by Christounet
It took me a while to fully understand the properties of the portal regarding all the rules, but when I got there, it was indeed a fascinating intricate solving experience. Thanks :)
on 17. October 2025, 02:21 by sfushidahardy
Really fascinating connectivity! Thank you for the introduction to Lohkous, too!