Philomino Thermometer Hatshiwokakero
(Published on 19. June 2025, 19:20 by phil_the)
This puzzle was created for one of Scojo"s Setting Saturday prompts. The idea for this prompt was specified by Ratfinkz and was to either make a puzzle using only constraints beginning with the same letter as your setter name, or to create a variation on a common constraint using some sort of pun to combine your name and the constraint name.
The grid must be philled with some or all of the digits from 1-9.
Hatshiwokakero rules:
Each hat is an island that must be connected via a network of bridges to all other hats in the grid. Bridges only travel horizontally or vertically. They do not branch, bend, nor cross each other and do not pass through other cells with a hat. The number in a cell with a hat gives the number of bridges connecting to that cell. Any two hats may be connected by a maximum of two bridges.
Philomino rules:
The grid must be philled with orthogonally connected regions with every cell in the region containing a number equal to the size of the region. No two regions of equal size may be orthogonally adjacent (they may touch at a corner but cannot share an edge).
No region contains more than one hat.
Thermometer rules:
Numbers in cells along a thermometer must strictly increase from the bulb end.
I don't think the line tool in SudokuPad allows you to draw double lines but you can just use different colours to represent single and double bridges. Alternatively you can enable the experimental 'markup' tool which allows freeform lines to be drawn. Answer checking is only on the numbers, so you may get the completion message before you finish the puzzle (if you enter all the numbers before identifying all the regions and bridges). You can also solve a version of this puzzle in Penpa if you prefer but unfortunately the hats won't display correctly.
Solution code: Digits on bridges (including on hats) in column 5
Comments
on 20. June 2025, 22:32 by QuiltyAsCharged
I've never done a puzzle like this before. It's very cool and creative. It took me quite a long time, in part because of my lack of familiarity. It was challenging to scan or to know where to look at a few points. But it was very satisfying to finally sketch in the last few regions!
I had never played Hashiwokakero, so I looked it up and tried a sample puzzle. That really helped.
Using different colors for the bridges worked nicely. I used green for single bridges, red for doubles, and yellow when I knew there was at least one bridge.
