GridWits
Expert tier Technique 14 of 18 Used by Smart Hint

Contested Space

If sending a cell to sea would leave a different island with nowhere left to grow, that cell is land instead.

How it works

  1. 1The 4 in the bottom-left still needs three more cells, and everything further right is unusable to it — those squares touch the 3, and two islands may never meet.
  2. 2Try sending the left-column cell second from the top to sea: the 4 is then left with only two squares it could ever grow into.
  3. 3Two is not enough for a clue of 4, and notice the tested cell doesn't even touch the 4 — it is the corridor the island needs, not a cell of it.
  4. 4So it can't be sea: it's land.
3 4
  • Island (land)
  • Sea
  • Cells that establish the pattern
  • Where the conclusion lands
Next in the ladder Land Squeeze →

The mirror image of Contested Space: if making a cell land would break the board right away — overflowing the island it would join, or walling a different island off from the room it still needs — then it's sea.