This is a Sunday Nurikabe puzzle.
Puzzle 106
The theme is possible to miss. If you finish and don’t find it, ask yourself: which number in the puzzle is special? For extra credit, why are they in that layout?
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Melon's Puzzles 
November 22, 2009 at 8:04 am |
I was about to answer “the large numebrs were most useful, as usual in nurikabe”. Then I remembered how I ended the puzzle on a smaller island with an unexpected shape. Could that shape have been included on purpose? Yes! It was the U of FILNPTUVWXYZ. Or, in the order in which the clues appear reading left-to-right on each row and top-to-bottom overall: IPYVXLWZFTNU. Guess I missed the extra credit since that ordering doesn’t look meaningful to me.
November 22, 2009 at 8:07 am |
That unexpectedly shaped island was definitely on purpose; it was tough as nails to force it. The 5 has to go in that middle square or you can’t possibly make a unique solution.
As for the extra credit, you might have to move them around a little. It doesn’t have to do with the letters directly.
November 22, 2009 at 8:49 am |
Ah, it’s like a packing problem that has experienced some continental drift. Cute. All that and still a good nurikabe too.
November 22, 2009 at 7:16 pm |
Holy crap, that’s an amazing theme, albeit a highly intellectual one that’s very easy to overlook. Solomon Golomb would be proud.
November 22, 2009 at 7:23 pm |
I figured it was easy to overlook, which is why I put the hint down. Also thought a theme like this one was fitting for the first Sunday puzzle, which I’m hoping to make more unorthodox in comparison to the Friday and Saturday puzzles.
Thanks for the comments.
November 25, 2009 at 1:05 pm |
Good Nurikabe. Got the theme (wouldnt have seen it without the comments).
Query:Nurikabe’s rule is that “all the black cells form one contiguous region, not counting squares touching at a corner to be adjacent” I think I have seen this interpreted in different ways:
a. No islands (regions of unfilled cells completely surrounded black cells) are allowed … such as a few of the 1s in your puzzle.
b. The term contiguous allows for surrounding an “island”
The reason I ask is that one can often use this rule to one’s advantage when completing a Nurikabe puzzle, and I wanted to know your take on it.
Thanks for this artistic Nurikabe
Ken
November 25, 2009 at 1:09 pm |
I just popped on the Nikoli site and realize that their example includes a one space isalnd. Seems okay in their book I guess. Not sure why, but I do not recall seeing that as allowed elsewhere.
“Never mind.”
September 30, 2011 at 8:33 pm |
Wonderful puzzle. The ending was especially impressive, at first I thought I had miscounted, because the shape is so un-Nurikabe, I guess.
The theme is extremely cool, but the extra credit is just mind-blowing. You are a puzzle writing genius, your control over the solution is frightening. I hope this took you a loooooong time to write š