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Kurokuron (クロクロ一ン: "black clone"), is a shading puzzle that first appeared in Puzzle Communication Nikoli issues 153-155. Identical rules apply to a hexagonal grid.

Rules

Shade some cells such that:

  1. Bold-outlined regions contain exactly two shapes, made up of contiguous groups of 1 or more shaded cells. Within a region, the two shapes must be congruent, allowing reflection and rotation.
  2. A shape cannot share an edge with another shape.
  3. Cells with arrows, which cannot be shaded, point to a neighboring cell, which must be shaded and part of a shape consisting of the given number of cells.

Example

Example

Example Solution

Puzzle

PSE Hexagonal Kurokuron

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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Can two arrows point to the same thing? $\endgroup$
    – boboquack
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 3:39
  • $\begingroup$ @boboquack yes, that is possible $\endgroup$
    – paramesis
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 10:06
  • $\begingroup$ I'd like to thank you for introducing me to a new kind of puzzle! This is like some combination of two of my favorite puzzle types: sudoku and picross! $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 15:05
  • $\begingroup$ @feelinferrety I hope we see more of this kind of puzzle. They're so much fun to make. I'd say it's more similar to Kurotto. $\endgroup$
    – paramesis
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 17:32
  • $\begingroup$ @paramesis I hadn't heard of that one either. :3 $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 18:43

1 Answer 1

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Final grid

(red is shaded, gray is not shaded)

enter image description here

Explanation (Potential spoilers!)

Note that there really is one possibility to fit two regions into the 4 region (all other ways to put two 4-shapes cause them to touch). The same applies to the 6 region in the upper left corner:

enter image description here

From here, I figured out that if the puzzle were to have a unique solution, then the two shapes in the 2 region had to not touch other regions as much as possible, leading to this:

enter image description here

From here there is only one way to fill the central 7 region, and the 6 region follows easily.

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ Just beat me... $\endgroup$
    – Wen1now
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 2:42
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, unique solution method was easiest $\endgroup$
    – Wen1now
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 2:51
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I'm not crazy about uniqueness as a solving method. I'm glad it didn't replace critical parts of the solve path. $\endgroup$
    – paramesis
    Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 10:10

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