#14 - Loop Hybrid

   A loop mashup containing elements of Yajilin, Masyu and Slitherlink. I created this puzzle on 7 June, 2021.

This puzzle was my submission to a 90m speedsetting session in the CTC discord, themed around Ghost Train mashups (that can be found on LMD most recently, here in round 8). This entry got second place in the contest.

 We were presented with a selection of rules which we could build our puzzle around, in the category number placement, shading and loops. I settled for a hybrid construction that most resembles yajilin, but combines slitherlink and masyu elements and digits to add an extra spice to the traditional shading. The full briefing as presented to us at the time can be found here.

Difficulty: 3/5

Draw a single closed, non-intersecting loop, following regular Masyu and Slitherlink rules. 

Each row and column must contain the digit 1 once. 1s cannot touch orthogonally and cannot be shaded. The loop cannot pass through cells filled with a 1.

Clues outside the grid indicate the number of shaded cells in the respective row or column. Shaded cells must not touch orthogonally. The loop cannot pass through shaded cells.

Edit 9 June 22: All cells must contain either a loop, shading or number element (that is, all cells not containing a shaded cell or a 1 must be visited by the loop).

Answer check requires line (for the loop), surface (for shaded cells) and number (for the 1s)

Solve on penpa