Nurikabe setting

[Maxelkat]

Nurikabe are my favourite of the Nikoli puzzles, but I've never figured out how to set one.
If anyone has some guidance I'd be very grateful.

Elliott

[detuned]

I really enjoy setting nurikabe - I do it really intuitively, almost as if I was solving the puzzle whislt setting it.

I basically throw in some initial clues, see what the implications for shading in squares is, and then go on from there adding new clues. You can then iterate this entirely linearly, or have several patches that merge together with some more involved logic. If you are just starting I'd recommend putting together smaller (10x10?) puzzle - if and when you feel that's cramping your style a bit then simply get bigger

Tom

[Maxelkat]

Thanks Tom

For some reason I'd always thought that a 'set as you would solve' approach wouldn't work for Nurikabe, and that you'd need to know the final arrangement before you started.
I tried a 10x10 as you suggested, and ambitiously tried to place the given numbers symmetrically, as Nikoli so often do. I had a couple of rubbings out, but it was much easier than I'd imagined. I've attached my final puzzle.

nurikabe1.xlsx

(9.57 KiB) Downloaded 1480 times

Thanks again

Elliott

[detuned]

Well - as I discovered to my peril with the LMI thing - you have to be a bit careful at the end to make sure that everything connects up, but generally you should be fine with set as you solve. Also there are plenty of nikoli nurikabe that aren't necessarily symmetric. I don't think that many of the nurikabe on my blog are symmetric actually so bonus points for your puzzle! Solving-wise, not a bad first effort I have to say. Lots of easy bits at first, and then a bit of head scratching to work out how everything would connect up together. Cheers!