Solving the Wind Rose Puzzle

Solving the "Wind Rose" Puzzle

Puzzle https://en.grandgames.net/windrose/id213131

1. Let's consider the cell marked with the number 5, highlighted in red. The cells highlighted in yellow are those that can contain lines coming out of this cell. As seen, these are blocks of five, two, and one cell. Since five out of these eight cells must necessarily contain lines coming out of the considered cell, the first two cells of the longest block will contain such lines regardless of whether the blocks of two and one cell are filled.

2. Consider the two cells highlighted in green. All empty cells of the field must be filled, but after the previous step, there is only one cell from which a line can be drawn through the two highlighted cells. This is the cell with the number 2 (highlighted in red in the diagram). Similarly, the cell highlighted in blue is only accessible from the neighboring cell with the number 5.

3. Consider the two cells containing the number 5. Similar to step 1, for one of them, three blocks that can contain corresponding lines contain 5, 1, and 1 cell, meaning the first three cells of the five-cell block must be filled (highlighted in green). For the second considered cell, potential filled blocks contain 3, 2, and 1 cell, meaning the first two cells of the three-cell block and the first cell of the two-cell block must always be filled.

4. The block of three cells highlighted in green is now only accessible from the cell with the number 3 in the far left column (highlighted in red). Since lines cannot be drawn from this cell anymore, the two cells in the upper left and lower left corners (highlighted in blue) can only be accessible from the nearest cells with numbers in the first and last rows.

5. The cell highlighted in green is only accessible from the cell with the number 5. No more lines can be drawn from this cell, so the cell highlighted in blue is only accessible from the cell with the number 4.

6. Similar to the previous step, the cell highlighted in green is only accessible from the cell with the number 5 (highlighted in red). Another line needs to be drawn from this cell, obviously, it can only be the cell highlighted in yellow.

7. Two more lines need to be drawn from the cell with the number 5 highlighted in red. Since there are only two available cells left (highlighted in green), these lines are unequivocally determined.

8. The cell with the number 4 has two available cells left, and two more lines need to be drawn from it, meaning both these cells (highlighted in green) must be filled. Additionally, it is obvious that the cell highlighted in blue is only accessible from the neighboring cell with the number 1.

9. The cell highlighted in green is only accessible from the cell with the number 2 highlighted in red. There are still three single empty cells left, each of which has only one neighbor from which a line can be drawn.

10. The puzzle is solved!