The final Post – one for the future!

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

I know these as Hanjie, but I’ve also heard them called Paint by Numbers and Paint by Sudoku. They’re a Japanese logic puzzle, in which you use number clues to shade in squares on a grid, until you end up with a picture in the end.

I am absolutely addicted to them, so in the spirit of sharing, I’ve created some new ones with a Professionals theme. If you haven’t tried these before, read on for a tutorial…





Right. Here you have a blank grid. Notice the numbers on the side and the top? Each represents a solid row of shaded squares. The rows cannot touch each other.

Two of the rows have no numbers at all. That tells you that none of the squares are shaded, so put a dot or a line in each one. This way you’ll remember not to shade them in.



Some of the rows have numbers that equal the length of the row. You can shade those in right away.



And finally, the rest can be filled in using simple logic. For instance, if the top row across is 3, 2, 3, then you know there’s only one way those three sets of shaded squares can fit together and still not touch. The second row from the top is a little trickier, but since you already know the first number is 2, then you know the third square can’t be shaded. The final three squares in the second row can be filled in two ways, so you’d leave them blank for the moment, until you’ve solved the rest.



Now if you’re ready to try some Hanjie on your own, or if you are already familiar with how the game is played, I have a variety of puzzles in PDF form for you to print out.



Bang! (easy)

In Moderation (easy)

Hardly a Creampuff (hard)

LOL! (hard)

If you’re having difficulty solving them, or if you’d just rather see what the finished puzzles look like without all the bother, you can find the answers here: http://rebelcat4.tripod.com/id161.html

While if you’d prefer to do them online, you can search for the puzzle titles on the website I used to create them here: http://webpbn.com

Merry Christmas, All!

ETA: The numbers are always read in order from left to right. So a row with 2, 1, 3, will always have two shaded squares, followed by one shaded square, followed by three shaded squares. And an unknown number of white squares between them, depending on the length of the row.
Thanks to msmoat for pointing this out! :-)

Comments

[diegina.livejournal.com]

Uhm, I know nothing about Canada, because I'm from the Czech Republic. But some 6 years ago, in Slovakia, they used to publish a whole magazin devoted to this type of puzzle. I bought several of them. I don't know how it is today, if they stil sell it, but here I scanned you several pages from this magazine:
1-tutorial (http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/9780/skenovat0001tutorialbo4.jpg)
2 (http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/5233/skenovat0002rt7.jpg) 3 (http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6645/skenovat0003yc7.jpg) 4 (http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/783/skenovat0004eo4.jpg) 5 (http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8043/skenovat0005nl0.jpg) 6 (http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/5793/skenovat0006gl7.jpg) 7 (http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/3264/skenovat0007hn0.jpg) 8 (http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/3733/skenovat0008hu2.jpg) 9 (http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5725/skenovat0009cn1.jpg) 10-normal (http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/8791/skenovat0010normalng0.jpg), but big and nice:-)

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Wow! Thank you!

You know, I'm going to have to print some of these and try them. I think I'm jealous - I've gone over the magazine stands locally and never seen anything other than sudoku booklets, and sometimes the occasional mixed puzzle book. But nothing like this.

[diegina.livejournal.com]

All of them are - I hope - big enough to be printed in a good quality on A4. All of them have a solution, otherwise they wouldn't be printed. I like these puzzles more than sudoku. Sudoku is fine, higher levels are really challenging, but you always know what you get in the end. With these pictures you never know what's waiting for you. The pic can be nice, but it also can be awful. You don't know until you solve it.
When I played with your two coded pics, I enjoyed it enormously. Somehow I didn't expect the first result (looking back, it was quite naive:-),so it was a very pleasant surprise when I saw the first face smiling at me. Decoding the other one was done with a very pleasant expectation *how* would he look like. I wish I could decode more pictures with this great theme:-) And the bigger the better:-) I like a challenge:-)

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you so much for letting me know your reactions to the pics! I worked very hard on those, with what I felt was mixed success. I was trying to keep them to a reasonable size, which limited the amount of detail I could put in. But hey, if you ever want a really large complex one, I'd be happy to oblige!

[diegina.livejournal.com]

As long as it can have only one solution and B/D theme I'm willing even to glue four A-4 sheets together:D But that would be an enormous work, so you don't need to do it.
I've just loginned to that page where you created that and now I'm trying to get orientated. Try to decode a pic or two. So, thank you also fot the link:-)

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Hum... I'll see what I can come up with. It'll be great to share these with someone else!

Hey, what's your screen name going to be on the webpbn site? Is it diegina? Are you going to make your own puzzles, too? I really like the fact that they rate the quality of the puzzles as well as the difficulty.

[diegina.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm there as Diegina. I still don't know if I'm going to do any pic, I've already tried it several years ago, but even then I knew I lacked a real inspiration. But who knows, maybe one day I would try it again.

[diegina.livejournal.com]

OK, some news: I've begun work on one really large colored pic(84x99). The Pros theme, of course. The question is whether it will be solvable.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Well, if you save without clicking the little box that asks if you're ready to share it with others, then you'll be offered a chance to try to solve it.

I think I had to try solving LOL about a dozen times before I got it right.

Also, don't play all the way through to the end, if you find an area with multiple solutions. If you do, you'll get a glitch that labels your puzzle as having multiple solutions, even if it ultimately doesn't. (Not that it's a big deal, or anything - just annoying.)

I'm looking forward to trying it!