Fillomino Puzzles

Fillomino is a rarely seen Japanese puzzle variant.  The grid contains a range of numbers that indicate groups of cells that must be adjacent to each other.  For instance a ‘3′ means there are 3 cells that form a group together, such that you can move from one cell to any other by moving just horizotally or vertically from one member to another. 

Groups of the same number cannot touch either horizontally or vertically (otherwise they would not be groups of that number if you think about it), but the most interesting rule is that you often have to add new groups and work out the number(s) in these.  For instance you might have to quite often add groups of size 1 - 4, but on occasion you need to go larger and sometimes surprisingly high numbers are forced uniquely through the constraint that groups containing the same number cannot touch.

To play some fillomino puzzles online, try the hand-made puzzles here:

http://www.thepuzzleclub.com/fillomino.php

There are other fillomino online but so far I have only seen computer generated fillomino.  Unfortunately the examples I have seen are not really true fillomino in the sense that they tend to contain a high number of 1’s in the grid, and this appears to be to constrain the rule that you sometimes have to add regions yourself - I have never seen one of the generated puzzles that requires you to add regions which defeats most of the fun of the game and what makes fillomino so unique and different to other puzzles.  If anyone knows of other fillomino puzzles that require the use of this fascinating rule please post them in the comments.

What is hanjie and how do you play it?

Hanjie puzzles have been around for a long time, but they are still unknown to many puzzle players.

You may have played hanjie under a range of names - it has been known variously as tsunami, hanjie, nonogram, griddler and probably more besides.

The aim is to work out which cells in each row and column of the grid-based puzzle must be filled in.  To help decide this, at the edge of each row and column are a series of numbers that tell you how many cells are filled in that region.

For instance, it could say ‘5,2′ - this means there are five filled cells and another region of two filled cels that are consecutive.  A comma denotes a gap of at least one cell between filled regions (otherwise it would be 7 if there was no gap!), but the gap can be many more than one cell.

The puzzle is solved through cross-referencing, and making gradual progress each time through with the harder puzzles.

Some things are easy to work out - for instance if all or none of the cells in a row are to be filled then you can fill them in straight off.  If more than half of the cells are to be filled, then you can fill the middle cell(s).

For instance, if the row is five cells in length and you know that 3 cells are filled, then in any combination the middle cell must be filled in, therefore you can fill it in.

Likewise, you can also make progress by working out cells that are not filled too, as this can further constrain options for the various regions and columns.  To mark a cell that cannot be filled may hanjie players like to put a dot in the cell.

At the end of the puzzle you will reveal a simple black and white image, and a clue to this is often given at the start of the puzzle.  Depending on how good the puzzle artwork is, the image may be more or less easy to recognise at the end!

You can play hanjie online by clicking that link, and also at the online Puzzle Club.

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