Ice Barn

My solving skills had been stagnant for some time. Truth be told, I was getting slower with puzzle types which require speedy pattern recognition, like sudoku. Rather than fight what is likely age with practice, I decided to improve on the harder end of the spectrum. I took up writing puzzle fragments, as a way to learn things I had been missing as a solver. Eventually, the fragments turned into full puzzles, and I grew to love writing as much as solving. Obscure Japanese types come easier to me, so I am sharing one of those with Perplexible. You can find more half-decent puzzles I write on my blog. And in case you’re wondering, yes, my solving has gotten better with writing.

Draw a path from IN to OUT, visiting all 5 ice barns (the blue regions) along the way. Out in the field, the path can turn freely, but cannot cross or otherwise touch itself. Inside ice barns, the situation is reversed: your path can cross freely, but you cannot turn at all. Parts of your path are given, as well as the direction in which you walk over them. Enjoy.

 

  • Michael Chandra says:

    I keep trying and keep failing, the arrow in the center* bugs it up I think? It’s the only arrow I can’t include in a solution.

    *: From the column of left-to-right arrows, the middle one, from d6 to e6 chess-style.

    • meanderlawn says:

      I didn’t have a solution file handy, so I’ve solved it again, and it seems fine. I could send the solution over to you, or you could put “gheaevtuggjvprguragnxrgjbyrsgf” into rot13.com and get a description of the next four cells your problem arrow visits.

      • Michael Chandra says:

        Ah, that explains it, I kept screwing up that point. No wonder I’d end up at an impossible situation. Thanks!

      • Michael Chandra says:

        There, I constantly made a wrong assumption at the square that first move leads to, forgetting there were two possible origin points there. Managed to solve it properly this time. =)

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