Trichroma Paintomino #1 (Novel Pencil Puzzle Ruleset)
(Published on 6. March 2026, 16:46 by MaizeGator)
This puzzle introduces a new ruleset I created for the final round of the Puzzle Agency Championship hosted by Agent. It borrows ideas from several classic pencil-puzzle genres, but hopefully combines them in a fresh and interesting way. I would be very happy to see other setters create more puzzles with this ruleset. Please let me know if you do!
- Divide each bold-outlined region into three differently-sized sub-groups of cells. Then, assign one of three colors to each group so that each region contains exactly one group of each color.
- A digit in a cell indicates the size of that cell’s group.
- Sub-groups that border one another through a bold region boundary may not be the same color OR the same shape (counting rotations and reflections as the same). For example, two touching S-tetrominos in different configurations is not allowed, but an S-tetromino may touch a T-tetromino.
- When the colors of the sub-groups for each region are placed in order from largest to smallest, any pair of bordering regions must have a different order.
Solution code: The sizes of each cell’s sub-group in the bottom row, left-to-right
Comments
on 17. March 2026, 23:04 by MazzleFlush
At last a puzzle with the LMD solution code provided within penpa! I hooe that becomes a trend
on 12. March 2026, 19:20 by Mathekatze
As I understand this, each sub-group needs to be orthogonally connected, but when double-checking the rules I found that this is not stated.
Assuming I understood the rules correctly, I think the ruleset could be improved by specifying explicitly that each sub-group needs to be orthogonally connected.
on 8. March 2026, 11:10 by ddx02
Nice! And I think it's a good opportunity to say that I loved your puzzles in this competition. Hope you'll upload the rest of them as well! ^_^
-I appreciate the encouragement! There were parts of my other contest puzzles that I wasn't quite happy with, owing to the deadline and assosicated time pressure. I am getting motivated to rework those parts though, and have resolved to publish them (eventually)
on 7. March 2026, 10:46 by jessica6
I prefer solid lines for fill-cell puzzles. They are easier to fill or undo in a paint program.
on 7. March 2026, 03:46 by sfushidahardy
Loved it!
on 6. March 2026, 23:34 by Agent
Very nice!
on 6. March 2026, 21:18 by Piatato
Good fun, thanks!
on 6. March 2026, 19:55 by Jasperrr
I really like the puzzle but the dotted lines make it really hard to finish it for me. They can be quite stressful on the eyes.
