Birthday Nurikabe
(Published on 18. October 2025, 03:40 by yttrio)
This is my birthday gift puzzle for timotab, whose solve is on YouTube here. It's intended to be a genuinely approachable pure nurikabe puzzle using birthday-relevant clues (10/14/1971, turning 54).
Rules:
Normal Nurikabe rules apply: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Clues cannot be shaded, and every orthogonally connected area of unshaded cells contains exactly one clue, the value of which represents the size of the area. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded.
Note: For solution check, fill every *non-clued* unshaded cell with the size of its respective area. For double-digit values, use just the ones digit.
Solution code: For each row from top to bottom, the longest run of shaded cells in that row (use both digits in case of double digit numbers)
Comments
on 11. November 2025, 10:00 by JoBerlin
Okay for the solution code I misread and looked at the longest run of unshaded cells at first... m)
on 4. November 2025, 13:25 by JVA
First of all, great fun puzzle
Second of all, I'm surprised 120 people have managed to input the correct solution code. Maybe next time just include a password in the completion message
on 1. November 2025, 01:39 by m_and_m_toastie
Echoing other comments: puzzle was very fun. Solution code was not fun to decipher. Perhaps worth adding an example of what you mean?
@nunc Single-digit numbers do not have a zero in front (eg 5, not 05). No spaces or commas. But it took me five goes to work that out.
on 28. October 2025, 18:17 by nunc
I solved the puzzle, and it was very smooth. But then I failed with the solution code. Tried several versions I thought might match the code description, but sadly, none of them worked.
on 21. October 2025, 10:47 by solarscream
Did the puzzle easy enough (love it)
Fell over on trying to get the solution check and solution code though! :D
on 19. October 2025, 01:36 by Nordy
Very fun, with a few nice surprises!
on 18. October 2025, 19:31 by Dacmon
Very nice and approachable!
on 18. October 2025, 05:33 by Karitsu
Not sure I’ve ever done Nurikabe puzzle before. This made me want to do more. Thanks for setting! And happy birthday timotab!
on 18. October 2025, 04:12 by waffles_the_dog
This was a really nice and approachable nurikabe, I really recommend it to anyone learning how to solve them. Thanks yttrio :D
on 18. October 2025, 03:43 by timotab
Thank you so much for the fun nurikabe :) I really enjoyed it!
