Corrosive Gecko Climbs a Fence — or, in most entries, dies trying…
Do you hear that sound? Yes, it’s the tiny, high-pitched screaming of our dear little hero Corrosive Gecko dying a thousand deaths on his march up the fence. And as much as I hate rewarding Will Etienne with another $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate, he submitted the ONLY correct solution to this week’s puzzle. Most of you ripped CG limb from limb, violating rule #5 below and spewing poor Gecko’s acidic guts across the fence.
And here I was thinking it was an easy week…
My trick was to scroll the gecko diagonally, spin him, and then switch diagonal directions. Of course, this was WAY too involved, and Will’s trick was to simply split CG’s legs out one to the right and the other to the left and then sequentially climb the little bugger straight up the fence.
For those of you who missed it, our friend Corrosive Gecko was in dire need of guidance up a fairly basic fence and must move according to the following rules:
1. Each turn, Corrosive Gecko must move exactly one leg or arm. You pick which.
2. He can grab either horizontal or vertical sections of fence, but never at the junctions.
3. Each turn, Corrosive Gecko slides his appendage along the fence wire exactly the distance of one side of a grid box. This means that if Corrosive Gecko is holding a vertical wire, he may move his appendage straight up to the next box’s vertical wire (1), or may move his appendage up and then right (2), or up and then left (3). If C.G. is holding a horizontal wire, he may only move right and up (4), or left and up (5).
4. Being a rather corrosive gecko, anything he touches disintegrates the instant his appendage leaves it. Once he uses a spot, our acidic friend may not use it again.
5. He is not one of those window-sticking stretchy geckos. At any given time, CG’s appendages must stay within four “moves” of every other appendage. If not, he is ripped apart and squirts gecko guts across the fence, dissolving the entire lattice in one pump of a dying gecko’s heart (you get the point).
6. No more than two appendages may be in a vertical or horizontal line at any given moment.
7. Once CG reaches one hand or foot to the top wire, he wins. (And you may not do anything sneaky like removing an appendage for a move, jumping, or other intuitively forbidden folderol.)
So GEEK UP you slackers. Next week I very much imagine Corrosive Gecko will be back, and this time he’ll be mad (and maybe on a different fence).
For those of you NOT named Will Etienne, use the following code to get $10.00 of an order of $50.00 or more at ThinkGeek: GEEKDAD93SF. As our puzzler Dave G astutely pointed out last week, they don’t carry cheese but they have a whole lot of other awesome things.
