Touching Tails
Published Mar4 2024.
Update (Mar05 2024): added image examples to rules, and a clarification to the fourth rule.
Update (Mar09 2024): added puzzle from Seren!
Update (Mar10 2024): added puzzle Fortune.
Update (Mar11 2024): check out PuzzleSquareJP's genre listing!
Update (Oct20 2024): added puzzle Plot Devices.
Update (Oct24 2024): added puzzle Perpend.
Update (Jan04 2025): added puzzle Goth Couple.
Summary
Unite the lover mice by tracing their tails.
Background information and credits
Inspired by Anurag Sahay's Reachability. Genre name by Abi.
Special thanks to Abi, Blaž Urban Gracar, Katelyn Δ, and Seren for ruleset implication hunting!
And shoutouts to Katelyn Δ for misunderstanding the original rules in a clever way, sending me on a seven-month journey through geometry heck.
Playtesters:
- Abi
- Autumn
- Blaž Urban Gracar
- jony
- Katelyn Δ
- panic
- Seren
- sus1d1p
- TheFullestCircle
Rules
Draw non-intersecting paths through the centers of some cells.
- Each path starts at a mouse. Each mouse touches a path.
- Each path endpoint faces another endpoint one cell away.
- Extending all paths forward by one cell would create a single network.
- All unoccupied cells, if any, form a single region.
(Shaded cells given by the puzzle are considered occupied cells.)
Examples
Incorrect - disjointed path:
Incorrect - endpoint not facing another endpoint:
Incorrect - two networks:
Incorrect - two regions of unoccupied cells:
Correct:
Puzzles
Edges
Paths may not pass through bold edges.
Clusters
Draw n paths extending from mouseholes of value n.
Hex
Puzzles on a hex grid.
Miscellaneous
- Plot Devices
- Perpend
- Goth Couple (feat. Seren)