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Advent Calendar – Dec 4
Day 4 brings us to our first non-sudoku. Today we are doing an icelom puzzle (which is a variation on icebarn puzzles). You must draw a path from the ‘IN’ to the ‘OUT’, passing through all the numbered cells on the way. There are specific rules about the blue regions and white cells, so make sure you read them carefully if you are new to icelom.
These puzzles can look impossible at first, but stick with it and all the small deductions will add up to a finished grid in the end.
If you are subscribed to the standard or family advent calendars, you’ll find links to the pdfs of today’s puzzle below.
For tips on how to solve an icelom, check out this video:
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At first I wasn’t even going to attempt this but I did. I wasn’t very efficient on this (at the end I had to do a lot of trial and errors), but I did finally complete it!! Thanks for the tutorial, it definitely helped. And Thanks for creating these puzzles, been loving them so far!
I’m glad you gave it a go and were able to finish. These types of puzzles can certainly be a bit daunting at first. But they can also be a lot of fun once you figure out what to do.
I missunderstood the rules for this one, treating “blue region” the same as “blue tile”, which worked for the family version but then very obivously didn’t work on the big one. Then I checked your video and felt a little silly. Once I really got going though, this one was such a treat! Loved the way it flows through the grid (no spoilers!). Best one yet, and the previous have been very good too!
Yes, that distinction (blue region vs. cell) can be a little tricky to wrap your head around at first, which is why I designed the family version to work either way (as you noticed). Glad you enjoyed the puzzle, and I bet you won’t forget that rule again in the future. 🙂
I think I just skimmed through the rules, and then the family version actually tricked me into thinking blue region and blue cell was the same. You are right though, it will not happen again. 😉
This was a killer, and I loved it. I took a few stabs at it before I COMPREHENDED the region wording. I conceptually understood it, but my eyes kept seeing them as individual boxes. After that, I sat down and got it done in eleven minutes (while listening to Jaymay’s Autumn Fallin’ for relaxing folk pop). Nice mind bender. (And no, I won’t forget that rule ever again.) 😂😂
Wow. This puzzle was a real test of patience. I’ve never done an icelom puzzle before, and I’m not sure if it’s typical of the type or this was really tricky setting, but getting into the mindset of only being able to extend one line by one square, or add one x to a border, before you have to move your attention somewhere else was really hard. I kept wanting to focus on the line ends and just “draw the loop”. I lost count of the amount of times I shook my head and uttered “this is just going to come down to guessing”. It didn’t though, and every step was there and logical if you just find all the little clues. Very satisfying in the end.