Posts: 2
Location: usa | Spent a rainy weekend periodically fiddling with this puzzle, trying to find a break in.. I marked the 2x2 region divisions, found and marked with various colors the 4- and 3-chains, but eventually put it on hold until the end of the contest, figuring I'd find the hint I needed from the thread comments. I think I would have eventually realized what each 2x2 quartet belonging to a single leg of the number map implies for categorizing and placing the quartets, but my thought process never really came near the direction required to realize the parity break-in.
However, getting stumped was not discouraging at all, I knew from looking at the puzzle (and from Ivan's past puzzles) that it would eventually be enjoyable, and I patiently waited out the contest duration. Sure enough, by about bullet 3 or 4 of Ivan's great break-in explanation, I was off to the races. And was happy to find that all the cell-coloring work I had done earlier was not wasted, and very useful during the solve process. As expected, an extremely fun solve after getting over that first hurdle. Thank you Ivan! |