A quick test on the edge of the grid

I explored a super quick idea in this Nurikabe. I wanted to constrain a large number in a 5x5 grid by pairing it diagonally with another number but also putting this pairing in the corner of the grid to see how the path would be constrained and would need to find a way out.

Essentially it immediately forces most of the puzzle to be solved with the only available space for the 7 island being right in the centre and the path looping around the edge of the grid. I initially didn’t know what the other clue was going to be because I wanted to focus on the larger number but it became easy to see that it could only be a 2 or a 3 clue.

Below is the solution, but I also toyed with the idea of keeping the secondary clue as a question mark and making the actual puzzle about solving what that clue needed to be. But because it could either be a 2 or a 3 it didn’t quite work out. It’s an interesting concept to take a puzzle that you traditionally solve in one way, only to turn it on its head and ask the player to solve it without that hint to make them figure it out. It means the rest of the puzzle has to be incredibly tight in how it forces the rest of the solution (especially with only one given number).

It was really interesting to see this one get put together qquickly but also be a satisfying solve and thought experiment in terms of design. I think it really taught me the limits of a 5x5 grid and how you use the space with larger numbers