Fill-A-Pix Tips Version 1

Written by: Bixarrio

About Me…

OK. So this part has absolutely nothing to do with advanced Fill-a-Pix tips, but I
thought I’d throw it in anyway, since I am writing this like a book, and books
normally have an “About the author” section.

I’m a 29 year old computer programmer, living in South Africa, and I discovered
conceptis puzzles just over a year ago, when I clicked on a link on MENSA South
Africa’s website, just after I joined them.

I printed the puzzles at work and took them home. At home, I tried to explain how it
works (to the best of my knowledge at the time) to my dad. He’s been living with me
for the last 2 years. We got hooked instantly. When I get home from work on
Mondays, The first thing I get asked is: “Did you bring puzzles?”

I started with the pic-a-pix puzzles, since they were the easiest to understand, and
soon moved on to the link-a-pix puzzles. The fap’s, however, left me guessing. I
could only complete the basic fap’s. With the advanced fap’s, I got as far I could, and
then switched to “trial-and-error”. This was no good. I didn’t like fap’s.

It was with one of the review fap’s that my eyes opened. It was like a light bulb
suddenly going on in my head. Suddenly I looked at fap’s in a different way. No
more “trial-and-error”. In fact, since that day, I have finished all my advanced fap’s
without any “trial-and-error”. Fap’s have become my favorite puzzles. Especially the
advanced ones. I don’t even bother with pap’s and lap’s anymore.

I downloaded the “FAP Starting Points”, and printed them. They helped a lot. If you
haven’t seen these yet, I suggest you go to the conceptis forums, and find it there.
Well worth getting for advanced fap’s. They were the inspiration to the discovery of
the tips I am going to discuss in this document.

Since there are no publications in South Africa (that I know of) that publish conceptis
puzzles, I soon ran out of puzzles. This pushed me to develop a program that will
create pap’s from bitmap images. I then tried my hand at developing lap’s, but these
are still in the process of being developed, since it is quite a complicated procedure,
making sure each link has only one possible path. I’m also working on creating fap’s.

I also downloaded axel’s program to complete fap’s on my pc. I liked it, but it left me
wanting. So I developed my own. It’s a lot like axel’s, except that mine can open and
save conceptis online fap’s, as well as axel’s puzzles. I won’t make my app available,
since I copied most of axel’s GUI, and I don’t want to infringe on his copyright.
Here’s a screenshot.
OK. Enough about me. Let’s get started.

About this document…

I have broken this document into two parts. I discovered the first part while reading
the “fap starting points” document, and the second part was discovered while
examining the first part’s tips.

The first part involves 2 identical numbers in adjoining cells, while the second part is
about 2 different numbers in adjoining cells. With adjoining cells, I mean horizontal
and vertical. NOT DIAGONAL!

I have tried to explain these tips to my dad, and it proved to be quite an endeavor.
This is why I’m writing this document. I will try to explain everything to the best of
my ability. Should you have any questions, comments or suggestions, you can email
me at [email protected].

Also note that these are not starting points. They are helpful once some of the puzzle
has been completed, and you get stuck.
 Part One…

Identical Pairs

Identical pairs in adjoining cells do not need a lot of explanation.

Examples of identical pairs in adjoining cells.

I will ignore both the 0 pair and the 9 pair, since all the cells in the 0 cell will be x’ed,
and all the cells in the 9 pair will be filled.

Here’s the tip:

Whatever happens on the far side of a number, WILL happen on the far side of the
adjoining number.

will become

However, this does not mean it’s going to be an exact mirror image!

can become
So,

will never become

or any other possibilities. Whatever happens on the one far side, will happen on the
other far side. If we have 2 x’ed and one filled on the one side, we will have two x’ed
and one filled on the other side.

This helps in situations like this:

Using this tip, we can now safely fill in a few more cells:

That’s it. Simple and straight forward.

There are situations where these tips are of no use. Here are a few:

In these cases, we cannot complete any cells, since we don’t have enough info.

In the next section, I will discuss pairs of different numbers. It’s similar to these, but
there is a small twist.
 Part Two…

Different Pairs

When we talk about different pairs, it’s the same as the pairs in part one, except that
the numbers are not the same. In the light of this, I need to clarify that you will
never find the following pairs:

where a = 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9

where a = 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9

where a = 6, 7, 8 or 9

where a = 7, 8 or 9

where a = 0, 8 or 9

where a = 0, 1 or 9

where a = 0, 1 or 2
 where a = 0, 1, 2 or 3

where a = 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4

where a = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5

This is simply because the rules of fap negates the possibility of these pairs.

Now, here’s the tip for different pairs:

Whatever happens on the far side of the smaller number, will happen on the far side
of the greater number, except that the difference between the 2 numbers will be
added as a filled cell. (Phew! What a mouthful)

Let me try to explain:

Whatever happens on the far side of the 3 (smaller number)

will happen on the far side of the 4 (greater number), except that the difference
between the 2 numbers (4 – 3 = 1) will be added as a filled cell.
This means that when you find this:

you can complete the following cells:

Since the difference between 5 and 3 is 2, the 5 will have 2 more filled cells on it’s
far side, than the 3’s far side will have.

In fact, because of this tip, you can make some radical decisions.

will become

And, you will never see this (unless you made a mistake)

or

Again, there are situations where these tips won’t help, but eventually, after filling in
some more cells, the information will become available.