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09 October 2009 @ 12:01 am
Friday Puzzle #18 - Battleship Fillomino  
Battleships was the first puzzle that ever caught my interest, many, many years ago, and even after most of the novelty of the stand-alone puzzle has been lost, I have enjoyed exploring the combination of this type with other puzzles. My patented gimmick of numbering the ship segments allows for easy combinations with various number puzzles, and I attempt here another such feat with one of my favored Nikoli styles.

Rules: Place the indicated ships into each grid, not touching each other even diagonally, so that the numbers outside the grid represent the number of ship segments in the given row/column. Also, fill each cell with an integer so that each integer is part of an orthogonally connected region containing the same number of equally valued cells as the value of that integer. The numbers on the ships must be true to the "key" provided outside the grid, but ships can rotate and left/right reordering of numbers is therefore possible. None of the given numbers in the grid are a part of any ship.

So, a solution will look like this:



Here are two puzzles, both different explorations of how this kind of type can work with a different interplay of battleships and fillomino in each.






 
 
 
Craig K.canadianpuzzler on October 9th, 2009 04:46 am (UTC)
I have prior art to at least partially invalidate that patent. See "Weighted Battleships" from the 2000 WPCs, by yours truly. :-)
motrismotris on October 9th, 2009 04:53 am (UTC)
Those were still just battleships puzzles, but good ones.... Gimmicks shouldn't be patentable anyway. ;)
sheehan on October 10th, 2009 05:03 am (UTC)
Nice puzzles again.

Tangentially related to this and your previous post about notable authors: I haven't noticed anything about special about juno so far (my experience is limited to nikoli magazines only), and I had just been doing a puzzle by him (Giants #21: Nurikabe #4). However, I did note the Filomino #2 as being special (same Giants #21) with the "LITS" givens and the "negative" "LITS" once solved.
motrismotris on October 10th, 2009 02:11 pm (UTC)
I actually really enjoyed the wrapping of the large numbers on the outside of Nurikabe #4 (and mentioned such in my review of GIants 21 when I finished it earlier this year). Again, it can be an issue of personal taste for particular puzzle types, but I find juno does cool things with large islands, and also his large "all 7" and his large "all 8" nurikabes from nikoli.com were particularly fun.

I'd totally missed the LITS theme in fillomino #2 but I even have the negative one marked in lines so I must have just been sleeping. That is very cool.
grandpascorpion on October 15th, 2009 02:00 am (UTC)
Definitely. The LITS-themed Fillimino was a classic.
carljohanr on October 10th, 2009 11:38 am (UTC)
Nice!
Nice puzzles. Fillomino is also one of my favorites, but I find it a bit hard to do these puzzles without cluttering the grids.
thesubro on October 14th, 2009 01:29 am (UTC)
Rules are rules ...
An important rule of Filimino (at least Nikoli's) that I will assume you used was: "A Block cannot touch a similarly sized Block, horizontally or vertically." I will try it both with and without such constraint until we hear from you on the blog.

Thx.

Ken
motrismotris on October 14th, 2009 01:51 am (UTC)
Re: Rules are rules ...
If a block touched a similarly sized block, there would now be 2N of a thing orthogonally connected with N labeled in the cells. This would violate the way I stated the rules. The extra statement always seemed redundant to me.
thesubro on October 14th, 2009 02:02 am (UTC)
Re: Rules are rules ...
Fair enough. The confusion comes with the fact that I always do Filiminos by placing walls around the blocks, so each cell with an integer remains "part of an orthogonally connected region containing the same number of equally valued cells as the value of that integer." The region maintains that quality due to the wall.

So be it. Thx for taking the time to address my inquiry.

Regards,

Ken
motrismotris on October 14th, 2009 02:08 am (UTC)
Re: Rules are rules ...
Sure thing. I don't draw the region boundaries typically, for reasons of time, but I can understand thinking of units like blocks, and those certainly will not touch as usual.
thesubro on October 14th, 2009 03:12 pm (UTC)
Nice fun combo ...
Good fun variation. I always get better at both types of puzzles when you combine two styles like this.

I enjoyed how you exploited the limitations created by the cross-diagonal you set up in the first one, and it allowed me to get into the combo so as to prepare for the next. I enjoyed the second better though as it required more simultaneous solving of the two puzzle styles to get to the end. Ultimately though, I may have leaned harder on solving the battleship aspects of both puzzles first, simply due to my comfort level with that puzzle type. The more you can compel the solver to bounce back and forth off of both to a solution, the more such combination puzzles will be enjoyed.

Thanks for the fun.

Ken

*** How many could have created it?
... how many could have solved it?
How wonderful for both.
Robert Hutchinsonertchin on October 14th, 2009 11:58 pm (UTC)
Once again catching up.

Re puzzle 1's solution: Am I missing something, or can the 6-6 ship in the rightmost column go in either rows 4-5 or rows 5-6?

Puzzle 2: I thought I had all the ships in place nicely ... but then the last few fillominos don't quite fit. Drat. Will try again shortly.
motrismotris on October 15th, 2009 12:00 am (UTC)
Both might fail for the same reason - givens are not parts of ships (as stated in last sentence of instructions). This addresses your concern in Puzzle 1 certainly.
Robert Hutchinsonertchin on October 15th, 2009 12:09 am (UTC)
I specifically reread the instructions to see if I missed something, and still didn't see that. My face is red. I will be sure to retry puzzle 2.
Robert Hutchinsonertchin on October 15th, 2009 12:25 am (UTC)
Well, this is typical for me. I went back to puzzle 2 with my "new" knowledge, solved it (yay), compared it to my previous attempt ... and realized I had simply put a single digit where it shouldn't go during the final fillomino-izing. That's right, the problem had nothing to do with me misreading the rules.

*sigh* :)
grandpascorpion on October 15th, 2009 01:58 am (UTC)
Great stuff
Especially #1. I'd be game to do more of these :)

motrismotris on October 15th, 2009 02:57 am (UTC)
Re: Great stuff
Feel free to. I'll link back to them if they are any good ;).
grandpascorpion on October 16th, 2009 03:45 am (UTC)
Re: Great stuff
Heh, I meant solve them but I guess it's too late to back down now ;)
motrismotris on October 16th, 2009 03:47 am (UTC)
Re: Great stuff
Totally misread that then. Yeah, I could make more, but it will be awhile before they rearise in my "rotation", not that such a plan exists.
grandpascorpion on October 16th, 2009 04:14 am (UTC)
Re: Great stuff
Gotcha
(Anonymous) on October 10th, 2010 07:16 pm (UTC)
patent number?
What is your patent number on this puzzle? Thanks.