Fog 50: Traffic Lights

[Happy Monkey]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3459594779

Unless I missed something, I don't thiink hint 1 is correct. I ran into trouble trying to put numbers in, but that's outside the scope of hint 1.

[Alpaca]

I had the same thought as you with those lines. I imagine this puzzle might get patched in the future.

[Maul]

No. I solved it, and hint 1 is correct.

There are two ways this can go depending on R4C34:
Red must pass those two cells, because it's coming from box 3 and can't return to box 3 to get around yellow.
Green must pass those two cells, because it's already going from box 6 to box 5 and can't return to box 6 to get around yellow.
Therefore, of R3C34, one is red and the other is green.
You just proved that R3C3 can't be red.

[Happy Monkey]

I was referring to the wording of the hint specifically. I know that once you try to put numbers in, my layout above doesn't work, but the hint implies that the lines themselves are constrained. Unless I missed something, my lines in the screenshot follow the rules.

[Maul]

Originally posted by Happy Monkey:

I was referring to the wording of the hint specifically. I know that once you try to put numbers in, my layout above doesn't work, but the hint implies that the lines themselves are constrained. Unless I missed something, my lines in the screenshot follow the rules.

I get your point. But the hint provides a part of the solution, which should make a solver ask: "Why though?" And then, at the latest, placing 1234567 in box 1 and 789 in box 4 is an extremely obvious move to make, especially in a 10 star puzzle. Among all the hints - many of which are horrendously bad - this one is actually rather good.

[Glassy]

No, it is not "rather good". It is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hint. There are a trillion ways to arrange those three lines. Just stating "it turns out that it has to be done this one way" is not a hint - obviously that's true because the puzzle has one solution. It gives no inclination as to how that deduction is made, so it's useless. I want hints that help me to understand the logic of the puzzle, not hints that simply hand me a chunk of the solution and leave me none the wiser as to the reasoning behind it.