Quick post today. As of writing this, my PhD defense is two (2) days away. By the time this post is live, I'll most likely be a doctor! Or something. (Edit: whoops, I forgot to schedule this post for Thursday! So, uh, you're getting these puzzles slightly in advance. Tomorrow's post has been moved back as a result.)
On an unrelated note, most of my puzzle energy has been spent preparing for this year's Logic Puzzle Open. If you're in the United States and would like to meet with other puzzle peeps at MIT in a month, feel free to swing on by! Several of us have been hard at work preparing for the event, and while we may be slightly tight on time, we'll guarantee a good time or your money back. (Spoilers: the event is free.)
With that said, on to our regularly scheduled Content. Today's genre is "Diagonal Chains", a type originating in the Innovatives round at WPC 2019.
Rules: Shade some cells to create diagonal chains. Shaded cells cannot be orthogonally adjacent, and no shaded cell can touch more than two other shaded cells diagonally. Furthermore, there can be no 'loops' of shaded cells – in other words, each group of diagonally connected cells must have at least one shaded cell with less than two diagonally touching shaded neighbors.
Cells with numbers cannot be shaded. The numbers indicate the sum of the lengths of all such chains where at least one shaded cell is horizontally, vertically or diagonally neighboring to the numbered cell.
The first puzzle is designed to be introductory, while the second is more meaty. Be careful about the diagonal adjacency rule; it's often easy to miss when solving.
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