#462: Isowatari

 made on 1/19/24

Rules and screenshot added on 1/25/26

Shade some cells. Black circles must be shaded and white circles must not be shaded. All shaded regions must have a specific area provided alongside the grid. The unshaded cells must all be connected but cannot form 2x2 squares.

In this puzzle, the intended area is 4.

https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player.html?W=7x7&L=b3b3b6w4b4w8b4w4w6w3&P-ISOWATARI=4&G=isowatari

I like how this genre incorporates a global area constraint on shaded regions. I found it a bit difficult to get into setting because combinations of all the constraints occasionally made the puzzle impossible but not in an immediately obvious way.

(Also, serendipitously, random 8 found that this puzzle grid is also unique if the area is 5 instead of 4.)