Graffiti Snakes by Murat Can Tonta
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools using a composite mode where left click inside cell shades square, left click + drag draws line segment, right click inside cell adds dot, and right click on cell edge adds an x.)
Theme: Twos
Author/Opus: This is the 177th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Murat Can Tonta.
Rules: Blacken some cells and then locate two snakes (1-cell wide paths). The snakes do not touch themselves or each other, not even diagonally. All remaining white cells must be part of the snakes with the heads and tails given in the grid. Outside clues indicate the size of all groups of blackened cells in that row or column in order. There must be at least one white cell between each of these groups. When no clues are given, any number of cells may be shaded in that row/column.
Difficulty: 2 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:15, Master = 2:30, Expert = 5:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other Snake puzzles. More Snake puzzles and variations can be found in Snake and Variations by Serkan Yürekli.
Maybe I’m just missing a rule, but is there a typo here? The 222 on the right side seems to mean that there’s three moves into or out of the rightmost column, which seems like it should leave a path stranded in the rightmost column.
No typo here — the posted puzzle is valid. You may be misinterpreting the rule, at least how the possible positions of the shaded (non-snake) segments lead to certain # of snake column crossings. There is a way to not strand a snake segment in the rightmost column.
To Jackson’s point below, it may help to just look at a Graffiti Snake solution since shaded/unshaded is not the same as the other puzzles this week. This puzzle, Snake (Graffiti) by Prasanna Seshadri, with both a solution video and a solution PDF can give that picture a bit.
Thanks for the puzzle! A few delightful headscratching moments.
While the 222 clues do reflect shaded squares, in this puzzle the snake cells are UNshaded. Sort of confusing, given how snake puzzles usually look, and that the heads and tails sort of look shaded. It’s a traditional feature of “graffiti snake” though.
I’d like to echo that I got confused by the snake being UNshaded on this puzzle, even though I had no problems with the other Graffiti Snake earlier this year. I think putting this in the middle of Snake Week, where every other puzzle has a shaded snake, confused me.