This Slalom was designed to emulate the Nikoli style while still keeping the theme. To be honest, I think the grid needs to be a bit larger for the theme to fully take effect, and one small consequence is that I'm not entirely sure if parts of this are actually Nikoli style. But I still had fun making this, and I think I gained some intuition about how to make these in the future. This is probably a bit overclued and on the easy side, but I'd argue that Slalom is one of Nikoli's easiest genres anyway.
Also, some of the implicit requirements for Nikoli puzzles -- e.g. the fact that both ends of a gate need labeling, so you can't label two gates if their endpoints share a cell -- are more annoying than I expected.
You're Nikoli style puzzles are an absolute treat, thanks!
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about trying to get published in PCN? Would be interesting to hear about their way of communicating and requirements etc.
*your Nikoli style...
DeleteI'd be surprised if PCN accepted international contributors, they seem pretty home-grown in that regard.
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