zotmeister | Puzzle 30: The One Ring

THIRTY! THIRTY! THIRTY! THIRTY! THIRTY! THIRTY! THIRTY! Echoes are fun. Today I celebrate my thirtieth birthday - a fitting day to publish Puzzle 30, which happens to be a 30×30 grid with another rather auspicious '30' in it. Before anyone asks, yes, I tried scaling this one up to 600×600 like all the others; trust me, it wasn't pretty. What lies below is the actual original image in its native size - 475×475. See Puzzle 3 for instructions. This may well be the most challenging-to-solve puzzle I've yet presented here. Hopefully it will make up for the last two and then some. I pulled out practically every trick I know. This puzzle can be solved purely deductively without guessing (structured or otherwise - put that thread away), but it will take a solid understanding of the design's mechanics to do so. Actually, I'm disappointed: the particular technique I was happiest to utilize turns out to be unnecessary - sequence-broken, to borrow the videogaming term. However, it could still be found and serve to speed things up, and there are plenty of other tricks to go around, so I'm happy with the puzzle as a whole. Your mileage may vary; by all means, let me know what you think of it. I await your solutions, and I have a rather fitting prize in mind I may be awarding... - ZM

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Happy birthday, Adam. I hope you get lots of fun toys and have a good year.

Quick clarification question: Does the large space in the center allow or disallow lines from crossing? To put it another way, am I allowed to have a long line passing provided it doesn't intersect any of the pixels that form the '30?' Or are those barriers? I ask because there are precedents for both styles.

No, you may not. According to the rules, no lines may be longer than unit length, and a line cutting across the 30 would be waaaaaay longer than unit length. :)

Thankee. I think it was from your journal, by the way, that used a longer-than-unit line. Those puzzles were tricky, but enjoyable.

I'm working on this one. It's enjoyable, but the eyestrain is nasty.

This is a real toughy, and I'm still working on it! I got a large section done but I'm pretty much stuck. Anywho, happy belated birthday and keep up the awesome work with your puzzles. I especially love the One Ring puzzles and I hope to try making a few of my own (although not nearly as complex as this!)

Adam,

I'll post more details once I totally finish the puzzle. I've got two regions yet to solve: small area above the 3 and the area below the 30. However, in trying to solve the area above the 3 and I'm coming up with more than one solution that works without violating the given criteria... Since I would expect a unique solution, I'm going to assume an oversight on my part and will recheck all my work.

Anyone else noticing this in that area, especially lower right of the place were it shows 203?

-=Blaine=-
http://puzzleblog.notlong.com

I can assure you there's a unique solution - three solvers have found it so far. You wouldn't be the first to doubt it, though, and perhaps you're making the same oversight - and I daresay it's the largest oversight anyone could possibly make on any of my puzzles... - ZM

You are absolutely correct I was overlooking something huge! How could I have done that? A corrected solution is in your in-box... not the first, but better late than never. :-)

-=Blaine=-
http://puzzleblog.notlong.com

Hello! I browsed in from the puzzlehelp community. I haven't had a chance to try and solve any of your puzzles yet, but I hope to ^_^. Do you mind if I add you?

Add me to what? I'm already in the puzzlehelp community, if that's what you mean. If you mean adding me to your friends list, help yourself. - ZM

In chronological order: GLmathgrant, Cale Gibbard, Mark Tilford, Joseph DeVincentis, Blaine D.. - ZM

Puzzle 30: The One Ring

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I'm very close, but I'm getting a non-unique solution

Re: I'm very close, but I'm getting a non-unique solution

Re: Mea culpa!

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Solvers so far