five pointed stars, five lettered cells (Pentominous/Star Battle)
(Published on 18. February 2025, 20:18 by Nell Gwyn)
A puzzle I made for a contest in the Skunkworks server. My opponent was GoodCity (and personally I thought GoodCity's puzzle was even better than mine, so if you like this one, check that out too).
- Place two stars in every row and column such that no two stars are next to each other, even diagonally.
- Divide all the unstarred cells fully into pentominoes (orthogonally connected shapes of five cells each) such that no two pentominoes of the same shape (including rotations and reflections) share an edge.
- A cell with a letter clue must be part of a pentomino of the associated shape (see the example image for a list of the twelve distinct pentomino shapes). A cell with multiple letters may be part of any of the indicated letter shapes.
Solution code: The sixth row. Use "*" for stars, and for all other cells use the letter shape of the pentomino in that cell.
Comments
on 8. October 2025, 09:58 by Christounet
Awesome how this works with so few clues and a very precise use of the star battle geometry. Thanks :)
on 23. March 2025, 21:27 by Piatato
Lovely!
on 5. March 2025, 06:42 by Roezaea
fantastic puzzle
on 22. February 2025, 04:38 by Nell Gwyn
Added a link to GoodCity's puzzle from the same competition round.
on 22. February 2025, 02:31 by ONeill
that was fun :)
on 18. February 2025, 20:41 by Agent
The genres were combined eloquently, a good mix of local and global logic, and a smooth solution path once you ask the right questions. The given pentomino clues made great use of the Star Battle geometry.
