14 Patchwork Variants (Part 1)

 While trying to translate the variants of 14 Minesweeper Variants into Heyawake variants was a fun challenge, at times I had to re-interpret the variants in new ways to align with how Heyawake works. To be clear, this isn't a bad thing and likely made the Heyawakes feel fresher than they would otherwise, but I still felt as though, if I wanted to make a more complete series, I should choose another paper puzzle that could accommodate all the variants of both games nearly verbatim. Specifically, I had the following criteria in mind:

  • It must be a pre-existing genre (not named Minesweeper), ideally one people know about. I searched through the Kudamono editor's list first because I could use the built-in variant support for some of the puzzles, but I wasn't opposed to sifting through pzprxs as a second resort. Luckily, I didn't end up having to resort to reading the Dictionary.
  • It must be a cell-shading puzzle or otherwise have a satisfying binary-cell interpretation. For example, a genre with multiple edge loops could be thought of as putting cells inside or outside the loops.
  • Clues must occupy cells within the grid and be able to contain numbers that count within a well-defined set of cells. Adjacencies would be alright, but I was especially hoping to look into territory counters or arrow clues.
  • The shaded cells must be loose enough that they could be grouped into multiple dominoes or one large snake. Ideally, neither the shaded nor unshaded cells should be guaranteed to be connected, even through diagonals.
With all these constraints, there was really only one genre I decided I could turn to: Patchwork. It's semi-obscure, but the build-your-own-region logic and the rule about shading near borders quickly convinced me that this would be a good idea.

This post contains a few vanilla warm-up puzzles and the aforementioned 14 variants. Rules are included in every link. Difficulty fluctuates, with [O] probably being the overall hardest.

[V]
https://puzz.link/p?patchwork/8/8/.g.j2h1h.i3.h...i12l34i...h..i.h.h0j0g./


[M][@c] penpa link
[N][@c] penpa link

Changelog (Patchwork? I sure hope it does!)
  • Replaced Q 5x5
  • Restructured D 8x8
  • Added another clue number to B 5x5

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