Tapa

Rules and Tips for standard puzzle types, and their variants
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PuzzleScot
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Tapa

Post by PuzzleScot »

Rules:

Paint some cells black to create a continuous wall.
Number(s) in a cell indicate the length(s) of the wall in its surrounding cells.
If there is more than one number in a cell, there must be at least one white cell between the wall parts.
The wall cannot form any 2x2 blocks anywhere.

Example with solution:
tapa_sample_1.jpg
tapa_sample_1.jpg (21.54 KiB) Viewed 36280 times
Mephisto
Posts: 89
Joined: Tue 18 Jan, 2011 12:28 pm

Re: Tapa

Post by Mephisto »

General discussion: Every rule should define the word "neighbourship". In most puzzles the neighbours are only the orthogonally adjacent cells; in Tapa also the diagonally adjacent cells are neighbours. Since orthogonal neighbourship is far more often used than general neighbourshi, the latter one should be explicitly mentioned. (Exclusion fo diagonal neighbourship is most often emphasized by "not even diagonally").
PuzzleScot
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Re: Tapa

Post by PuzzleScot »

Thanks. Do you think 'surrounding' rather than 'neighbouring' clarifies this?
Mephisto
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Joined: Tue 18 Jan, 2011 12:28 pm

Re: Tapa

Post by Mephisto »

'surrounding' vs. 'neighbouring' -- maybe 'adjacent'? However, I'm not a native English speaker and can't comprehend all the subtle differences in the meaning of these words.
PuzzleScot
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Re: Tapa

Post by PuzzleScot »

'Surrounding' certainly covers all 8 'adjacent' cells unambiguously. Adjacent means 'touching' - not clear whether that includes diagonally touching or not.
nickdeller
Posts: 606
Joined: Tue 29 Jun, 2010 11:41 am

Re: Tapa

Post by nickdeller »

The problem with using the word 'surrounded', as I discovered in an interesting discussion back in my TP days, is that the edge and corner squares are not surrounded! I can't remember the precise circumstances where it cropped up, but it's one that has potential to confuse. Better to avoid!
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