Heyawake
Rules[edit]
Shade some cells black so that all remaining cells are connected orthogonally and no two black cells share an edge. The grid is divided into regions by thick borders; a number in a region indicates exactly how many cells in that region must be shaded black. Every "word" in the grid (a group of unblackened cells connected to each other either only horizontally or only vertically) may not cross more than one thick border.
(Rules and example from PGP IB)
Rule variations[edit]
- In most Heyawakes, every regions are rectangles. When the puzzle contains non-rectangular regions, it is called Heyawacky. This name, now commonly used, was an idea of Thomas Snyder (USA) in 2009.[1]
- In Heyawacky, the last rule is sometime altered to "Every 'word' in the grid may not lay in three different regions." The two rules are equivalent when all regions are rectangular, but are not always so in Heyawacky.
History of the puzzle[edit]
First appeared on Nikoli volume 39 (1992). Invented by Hiroyuki Fukushima. へやわけ ("Heyawake") means "dividing rooms."
Variants[edit]
Akichiwake[edit]
Introduced by Prasanna Seshadri (India). First appeared on Parallel Universe II – Inversion Invasion, held in April 2014. [2] Akichi (空地) is Japanese for "vacant land".
Shade some cells. Shaded cells can’t touch each other by a side. The remaining white area has to be connected. The white area can't span over two consecutive thick boundaries in a single row or column. The numbers indicate the maximum possible continuous white area within a region. There need not be an area equal to this value; the only restriction is there can be no continuous area larger than the value.
(Rules and example from WPC 2017 IB)
Starwacky[edit]
Appearances in the past WPCs[edit]
- WPC 2019/World Cup Round 1 by Roland Voigt
- WPC 2019/World Cup Playoffs by Roland Voigt
- WPC 2018/Round 1 by Jiři Hrdina
- WPC 2018/Round 6 (Starwacky) by Jan Zvěřina
- WPC 2017/Round 4 (Akichiwake) by Prasanna Seshadri
- WPC 2017/Round 7 by Prasanna Seshadri
- WPC 2017/Round 16 by Prasanna Seshadri
- WPC 2016/Round 2 by Matej Uher
- WPC 2015/Round 2 by Hns Eendebak
- WPC 2013/Part 5 (Symmetry Heyawacky)
- WPC 2013/Part 8
- WPC 2011/Part 5