Round Trip by Hans van Stippent
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; in default linex mode: left-click+drag draws line, right click marks X on edge)
Theme: Logical
Author/Opus: This is the 10th puzzle from guest contributor Hans van Stippent.
Rules: Draw a single loop in the grid which may cross itself orthogonally, but otherwise does not touch or retrace itself. The clue numbers to the left/right of the rows indicate the number of squares visited by the nearest section of the loop that travels horizontally in the rows. The clue numbers to the top/bottom of the columns indicate the number of squares visited by the nearest section of the loop that travels vertically in the columns.
Also, see this example:
Answer String: Enter the number of empty squares for each row from top to bottom, followed by a comma, and then the number of turns for each row from top to bottom. This example has the key “100000,422224”.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:45, Master = 3:00, Expert = 6:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other Round Trip puzzles. Some more Round Trip puzzles can be found in the book Loop Variety Collection by Ashish Kumar and Murat Can Tonta.
5:18 (The hardest part might have been correctly entering the answer string. I don’t know how I could have failed at counting so many times there…)
2:33
8:23
Is there anywhere I can find more of these? A search on the name Round Trip only turned up a slitherlink variant with the same name.
– Neelix
I added a link to a few other Round Trips (http://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/tag/roundtrip/). It is a style Craig Kasper debuted a few months ago and I’m unaware of a lot more examples out there yet.
Thanks, but I’ve already solved all the ones posted here. For some reason there’s something about this puzzle type that always leaves me wanting to continue with another puzzle of the type when finished.
– Neelix
The past couple of months I’ve had too much to keep on top of to do much beyond keeping on top of things and catching my breath in between. I will, however, eventually get around to creating more of these puzzles (and doing more puzzle construction in general).
In the meantime, while it’s not much of a puzzle fix, one of the things which the puzzle at the bottom of my October 18th post to PuzzleJunk is is a Round Trip puzzle.