Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku, is a three-time World Sudoku Champion and six-time U.S. Puzzle Champion, as well as the author of several books of puzzles. His puzzles are hand-crafted, with artistic themes, serving as a kind of “cure for the common sudoku.” Almost every day he posts a new puzzle on his blog, The Art of Puzzles. This week’s prescription is an unusual take on Slitherlink, with a large field of 1 clues in the center.
Slitherlink is one of the "classic" loop puzzle styles, and has inspired countless variations since it was first published in 1989 by Nikoli in Japan.
The rules: Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that only consists of horizontal and vertical segments between the dots. Numbers inside a cell indicate how many of the edges of that cell are part of the loop. For a tutorial with visual aids, see Nikoli's official rules.
I haven't written too many Slitherlinks, as it is hard to do anything very novel with the puzzle style after thousands of puzzles have been written, but I enjoyed creating this challenge and felt like sharing it with you. Besides the large field of 1 clues in the center, it has no zero clues, which makes it harder than most Slitherlink puzzles to start.
Slitherlink, by Thomas Snyder
Download a PDF of the puzzle. Solution is on the second page.
Solution
