Kurotto by Prasanna Seshadri
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Sum 10 Pairs
Author/Opus: This is the 47th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.
Rules: Standard Kurotto rules.
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the shaded segments from left to right for the marked rows, starting at the top. Separate each row’s entry with a comma.
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:15, Master = 3:45, Expert = 7:30
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other Kurotto puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Kurotto to get started on. More Kurotto puzzles can be found in the ebook Kurotto by Prasanna Seshadri.
I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it’s the group of 5’s at the bottom left, but I tried to solve this as an Araf, which obviously didn’t work.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one.. It went nowhere fast, and something felt wrong about the grid design. Much better to solve with the intended rules!
We had this discussion during testing. While all styles here are visually distinct (Araf has dotted lines since you may mark region borders, Kurotto does not) these did get confused. I thought perhaps adding a small example image to our posts (in addition to the link no one ever clicks on) might make this better. Of course that means it wants to get into the PDFs too and this leads to a lot more work.
To clarify my “something felt wrong about the grid design”, I meant that it felt wrong trying to draw region borders on solid grid lines – that’s what caused me to step back and reconsider what I was doing. I don’t think sample images should be necessary; like Loren says below it’s likely more that these two types are relatively new/unusual, and some including myself have not yet forged that immediate title-ruleset association for them.
Sorry, late reply (just entering answers for the week now). I thought I was the only one that assumed Araf rules. I guess these two styles appear less freq. and my brain hasn’t locked in the names yet. In my case it wasn’t until I proved to myself that it logically couldn’t be Araf rules that I went to remind myself of the rules. That, and I thought it odd that the second Kurotto had open circles…
I always forget which puzzle Kurotto is, and wasn’t at a computer, so I also started this thinking it was an Araf. Fortunately it didn’t take too long to prove that was impossible. Could make an interesting twin project!
8:36