Rules
Permaculture: Divide the grid into two connected nonoverlapping regions, called the nurikabe culture and the dominion culture. Draw a border separating them and shade some cells in each culture according to their respective rules.
Clues: Each letter represents the same positive integer everywhere that letter appears. Different letters represent different numbers. Every cell with a letter is unshaded. Each letter appears in only one of the cultures.
Nurikabe: Shade cells so that all shaded cells in the nurikabe culture form one contiguous region. No 2x2 block fully inside the nurikabe culture may be fully shaded. Each contiguous unshaded region inside the nurikabe culture must have exactly one clued cell in the nurikabe culture, and the number that cell represents must equal the number of unshaded cells in that contiguous region.
Dominion: Shade cells so that each shaded cell inside the dominion culture shares an edge with exactly one other shaded cell inside the dominion culture (i.e., they form dominos which may not touch edge to edge). Dominion dominos may touch shaded cells in the nurikabe culture. Each unshaded contiguous region inside the dominion culture must contain all instances of one clue letter, and no instances of any other letter. The number represented by a dominion clue is equal to the number of distinct dominion dominos that touch that unshaded region.
Solution code: Enter the numbers represented by clues ABCDE in that order.
on 10. April 2026, 13:27 by MaizeGator
This is a perfect first-round contest puzzle IMO. Sneaky ruleset implications that aren't that obvious until you think hard for a few moments, but after you discover them the whole puzzle collapses very nicely.
on 8. April 2026, 11:47 by The Book Wyrm
Neat snack one you actually read the rules fully to realise that there's a couple additions to the standard rules (oops).
on 5. April 2026, 07:56 by Piatato
Nice snack, thanks!