Inkwell Games Stars puzzle - I'm addicted

[Anonymous]

Ok I’m trying really hard to get this “x shapes in x rows” rule. It made a lot of sense in Wednesday with all the straight lines. Help me see this in Thursday’s please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok I’m trying really hard to get this “x shapes in x rows” rule. It made a lot of sense in Wednesday with all the straight lines. Help me see this in Thursday’s please!

re: Thursday? Do you have the stars in (row 3, column 5) and (row 10, column 3)? Then you will know the other star in column 3 has to be in rows 2 or 3. Putting in all those x's, then you can work on column 5. That fat flag shape on the bottom has 4 touching in the flag, so only one of them can be a star, meaning one in the flag pole has to be a star so x-out everything else in column 5.

You can probably fill a couple more stars after that and then use "x shapes in x columns" on the first 3 columns to get some x's, although I'm not sure you'd need to once you fill in the couple of stars. Does this help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok I’m trying really hard to get this “x shapes in x rows” rule. It made a lot of sense in Wednesday with all the straight lines. Help me see this in Thursday’s please!

re: Thursday? Do you have the stars in (row 3, column 5) and (row 10, column 3)? Then you will know the other star in column 3 has to be in rows 2 or 3. Putting in all those x's, then you can work on column 5. That fat flag shape on the bottom has 4 touching in the flag, so only one of them can be a star, meaning one in the flag pole has to be a star so x-out everything else in column 5.

You can probably fill a couple more stars after that and then use "x shapes in x columns" on the first 3 columns to get some x's, although I'm not sure you'd need to once you fill in the couple of stars. Does this help?

Adding before I forget -- after putting in a bunch more stars, rows 8 and 9 were where I ended up using the "x shapes in x rows" logic.

[Anonymous]

Thanks - yes I did everything in the 7:58 post naturally. (And then I did solve using one guess but now I’m going back and trying to get through with logic)

It’s the row 8 and 9 in your second post I’m not seeing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks - yes I did everything in the 7:58 post naturally. (And then I did solve using one guess but now I’m going back and trying to get through with logic)

It’s the row 8 and 9 in your second post I’m not seeing.

Was your guess right after where I ended the first post or later? I will go back. What do your rows 8 & 9 look like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks - yes I did everything in the 7:58 post naturally. (And then I did solve using one guess but now I’m going back and trying to get through with logic)

It’s the row 8 and 9 in your second post I’m not seeing.

Was your guess right after where I ended the first post or later? I will go back. What do your rows 8 & 9 look like?

If you have the star at the bottom of the flagpole already you can x-out the rest of the bottom row. You have the stars in (row 9, column 1) and (row 8, column 4) already, I'll assume, and assume you got those without guessing.

Then there's the other shape (kind of backwards C with a jut out (the 4 stars the same shape as the original flag, but on the shape to the right - max of one of those can be a star. So then at least one of that shape's 3 remaining stars must be a star. So x-out (row 6, column 7) and (row 8, col 7).

You also know row 7 also has a star in col 2, so exactly one of the 3 remaining stars in the shape I just mentioned above can be a star. Therefore, one of the 4 cells in rows 8 and 9 columns 8 and 9 must be a star.

Combine that with having to have a star in the original flag (I currently have two choices left for that star) and the two stars already put into rows 8 and 9 and you can x-out (row 8, col 9) and (row 9, col 9).

[Anonymous]

^I forgot to say when talking about one of the 3 in row 7 from that backwards C shape must be a star that that also rules out (row 7, columns 9 and 10).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks - yes I did everything in the 7:58 post naturally. (And then I did solve using one guess but now I’m going back and trying to get through with logic)

It’s the row 8 and 9 in your second post I’m not seeing.

Was your guess right after where I ended the first post or later? I will go back. What do your rows 8 & 9 look like?

Oh! I just logic-ed my way through! I was doing it in incognito mode since I had already competed it logged in. But I put my phone down to get coffee and it wiped out my progress after my last post. So I tried to catch up to answer your question and went straight through with logic. I feel like Thursdays are hit or miss with logic for me. After Thursdays there is way more guessing involved. Going to try to power through the rest of the week…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks - yes I did everything in the 7:58 post naturally. (And then I did solve using one guess but now I’m going back and trying to get through with logic)

It’s the row 8 and 9 in your second post I’m not seeing.

Was your guess right after where I ended the first post or later? I will go back. What do your rows 8 & 9 look like?

Oh! I just logic-ed my way through! I was doing it in incognito mode since I had already competed it logged in. But I put my phone down to get coffee and it wiped out my progress after my last post. So I tried to catch up to answer your question and went straight through with logic. I feel like Thursdays are hit or miss with logic for me. After Thursdays there is way more guessing involved. Going to try to power through the rest of the week…

That's funny because I had paused mine on my second run through and then backed some stuff out to write my additional responses, and I'm pretty sure I saw things in a different order. So I wasn't sure if my responses would match up to where you actually were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks - yes I did everything in the 7:58 post naturally. (And then I did solve using one guess but now I’m going back and trying to get through with logic)

It’s the row 8 and 9 in your second post I’m not seeing.

Was your guess right after where I ended the first post or later? I will go back. What do your rows 8 & 9 look like?

Oh! I just logic-ed my way through! I was doing it in incognito mode since I had already competed it logged in. But I put my phone down to get coffee and it wiped out my progress after my last post. So I tried to catch up to answer your question and went straight through with logic. I feel like Thursdays are hit or miss with logic for me. After Thursdays there is way more guessing involved. Going to try to power through the rest of the week…

That's funny because I had paused mine on my second run through and then backed some stuff out to write my additional responses, and I'm pretty sure I saw things in a different order. So I wasn't sure if my responses would match up to where you actually were.

I do appreciate it though. Just reading strategies written out in this thread has helped me reframe a things I was already doing and seeing a few new angles. So interesting how everyone approaches it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok I’m trying really hard to get this “x shapes in x rows” rule. It made a lot of sense in Wednesday with all the straight lines. Help me see this in Thursday’s please!

OP here - I didn't find the x shapes in X rules rule super helpful for Thursday's puzzle. It was useful right at the beginning.

[Anonymous]

What I did use a lot for Thursday's puzzle was:

if you know a star must be in two contiguous boxes, you can ex out the two boxes on either side.
If you know a star must be in one of three contiguous boxes, you can X out the middle box on either side.
If you know there has to be a star somewhere inside a shape at the top of the puzzle, and you know there has to be a star somewhere inside a shape at the bottom of the puzzle, and they are in the same column, you can ex out everything else in that column.

[Anonymous]

I JUST LOGIC-ED MY WAY THROUGH A FRIDAY!!! I don’t think I’ve ever done Friday without some amount of guessing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I JUST LOGIC-ED MY WAY THROUGH A FRIDAY!!! I don’t think I’ve ever done Friday without some amount of guessing.

Yay!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I JUST LOGIC-ED MY WAY THROUGH A FRIDAY!!! I don’t think I’ve ever done Friday without some amount of guessing.

Congrats!!

I also logic0ed my way through this week's Friday puzzle. I am getting better at Saturdays. but man... have you tried today's Sunday puzzle? I am stumped. I can't get a star. I can't even get an X. I have nothing.