Wordy Wednesday 341 revolved around a single grid which can be solved as two separate logic puzzles, specifically as a Pentominous (divide the white cells into pentominoes, regions of five cells each, so that no two congruent pentominoes, even if rotated or reflected, share an edge) and as a Battlestar (place stars in some of the white cells so that there are two stars in every row and two stars in every column, and so that no two stars are in cells which share an edge or a corner). Three weeks ago, I challenged my readers to shade in some cells in a 10x10 grid to accomplish the same feat, while maximizing the number of solutions the Pentominous would have without the rule that congruent pentominoes cannot share an edge. The entries are collated below:
The winner of both parts of the contest is John Bulten, a regular contributor to Grandmaster Puzzles! Yeah, he managed to blow everyone else out of the water, needless to say.
In the rules, I wrote, "Note: if the winners of Part 1 and Part 2 are the same person, I reserve the right to award the prize for Part 2 to second place instead." Therefore, the prize for Part 2 goes to me! But I'm feeling generous, so I'll give it to the sole other entrant, instead, who is Anuraag Sahay! Congratulations!
Stay tuned next week for the sequel to Let's Guess Two Words II!
