This morning I had the unexpected pleasure of being introduced to a great puzzle game known as Hanjie from the webmaster of hanjie.expert2.be (the link is in Dutch, but I think you can work your way through it). I can’t believe I haven’t played this game before, which is in the Sudoku-style family of games, because it is certainly fun and quite addictive. From the Wiki article:
are the first subset of picture logic puzzles, in which cells in a grid have to be colored or left blank according to numbers given at the side of the grid to reveal a hidden picture. In this puzzle type, the numbers measure how many unbroken lines of filled-in squares there are in any given row or column. For example, a clue of “4 8 3″ would mean there are sets of four, eight, and three filled squares, in that order, with at least one blank square between successive groups.
These puzzles are often black and white but can also have some colors. If they are colored, the number clues will also be colored in order to indicate the color of the squares. Two differently-colored numbers may or may not have a space in between them. For example, a black four followed by a red two could mean four black spaces, some empty spaces, and two red spaces, or it could simply mean four black spaces followed immediately by two red ones.
I was pretty confused at first, but after some much needed explanation I got the hang of it and ended up solving my first Hanjie puzzle in about 30min. I was so satisfied with my result I went downstairs to describe this new game to my wife (also a Sudoku fan). But when I started to explain the mechanics of the game, you color in blocks based on the external number sets surrounding the grid, she started laughing and went off into her secret hiding place (Christmas presents) and produced a Hanjie puzzle book!! It seems she was going to surprise me with a new challenge but through an interesting twist of fate I beat her to the punch (whoops!). In any case it works out for me since now I can enjoy them immediately (and I’ll get to work on a Hanjie strategy). Here’s the finished puzzle, called the “Little Dragon”.
Pretty Sweet, right :)
