This puzzle was made for dumediat as a birthday gift last year! It is inspired primarily by his wonderful puzzle What's in a naname?", though this one should be a bit easier.
Rules:
Draw lines through orthogonally adjacent cells to form exactly one loop which enters and exits each cage exactly once.
*ALL* cells in which the loop turns correspond to a shape. On single diagonals, the loop must turn exactly once without crossing the diagonal. On double diagonals, the loop must visit the cell twice, turning at the center without crossing the diagonal both times. The loop may not branch under any circumstances, or visit a cell twice without turning.
Clues outside the grid indicate how many cells their corresponding shape appears in their row or column.
The grid is toroidal, meaning that the top of row 1 leads to row 8, the left of column 1 leads to column 8, and vice versa. The cage in column 8 wraps around the column edge.
For a bonus challenge, determine which one of the heart clues can be removed without affecting the unique solution.
And here is an example image (not solvable) of how the clues work:
Solution code: column 6, writing T for any single turn, D for any double turn, S for any straight line, and E for any empty cell
on 27. March 2025, 10:07 by tuace
Wow, that was awesome. Nice idea and really tricky. I had a lot of fun with it :)
on 17. March 2025, 15:45 by dumediat
Thanks again for the fantastic birthday gift, and glad to see this on the portal! :D
on 14. March 2025, 19:35 by wisty
Bumped up estimated difficulty
on 14. March 2025, 17:32 by Grausbert
Amazing puzzle! Very difficult, but very enjoyable
on 14. March 2025, 01:23 by sfushidahardy
Such a cool puzzle! Great and varied logic throughout, and very accessible (to me) given the unfamiliarity of the ruleset.
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