The Doppit Almanac · No. 44

Brickit

Build one wall the clues describe

What it is

Brickit is Tapa. You fill cells with bricks until they all join into a single wall, and the numbers scattered across the grid tell you where the wall goes. A clue is a cell with numbers in it, and it never holds a brick of its own.

The eight cells around a clue make a circle, and the clue counts the runs of bricks in that circle. A clue reading 3 means one run of three bricks somewhere in the ring, and it will not say where. A clue reading 2 1 means a run of two and a lone brick, with at least one empty cell between them, in either order. The numbers describe a shape, not a total, and where the shape sits is your job.

How it plays

• Fill some cells with bricks. Every brick joins every other brick side by side, in one wall; corners do not count.
• A clue counts the runs of bricks in the eight cells around it, read round the circle in either direction.
• Two or more numbers are two or more separate runs, with at least one empty cell between them, in any order.
• A clue cell never holds a brick, and no four cells in a square are all bricks.
• Brick fills a cell, Empty marks a cell you know stays empty. Tap a cell, or drag along a line of them.
• Empty marks are only your notes; the win ignores them. Stuck? Hint names the next forced cell.

The difficulties

Easy is six by six and keeps most of its clues, under a minute of reading one clue at a time. Medium is nine by nine and always asks you to read two clues together at least once: where their cells overlap, an arrangement of one can leave the other with nothing, and dropping those settles cells neither clue would settle alone. Hard is ten by ten, carved down until reading two clues together is a regular move and at least one cell needs you to suppose a brick and follow it to a contradiction. Expert is twelve by twelve, carved down to the last clue set with one answer, so one supposition stops being enough and a second has to go inside the first. It takes about twice as long as hard, and it never comes round as a daily; it is yours to practise on. A fresh board is dealt every day, for nothing.

Nearby in the almanac: Islandit, Yinit and Tallyit