Introducing the Bitter Divorce Bonus Round
First there was Lovebirds, where the horse and the unicorn wanted nothing more than to share an enclosure. Then came Lovers' Quarrel, where they wanted one each. We said at the time that the honeymoon was over.
It is now properly over. The paperwork is in, and everything gets split down the middle.
Two enclosures, exactly equal
In the Bitter Divorce bonus round, the horse and the unicorn each need their own enclosure, the same as in Lovers' Quarrel. The new part is the settlement: the two enclosures must score exactly the same. Not close. Not within a point. The same.
How the score works
Your score is the two enclosures added together, so a matching 35 and 35 scores 70. The goal is the biggest matching pair you can build with the walls you have.
To make that workable, the score line shows both enclosures while you play. When they match you will see something like 35 + 35 = 70. When they do not, you will see 35 ≠ 34, and Submit stays greyed out until you fix it.
Why an even split is harder than it sounds
In Lovers' Quarrel, a big enclosure for the horse and a small one for the unicorn was a perfectly good answer. Here it is worth nothing. The smaller side sets the limit, so the puzzle becomes finding room for both of them, and then trimming until the numbers agree.
That changes what a wall is for. A wall is no longer only a way to close a gap. Placed inside an enclosure, it takes one tile off that side, which makes it a tool for fine-tuning. Sometimes the best move is to make one enclosure slightly worse on purpose.
Special tiles count toward whichever enclosure they sit in, and they swing the balance hard. A golden apple is worth ten extra on one side, which the other side has to find from somewhere. A swarm of bees takes five off. Cherries are three each. Half the round is arithmetic.
What the horse and unicorn make of it
Click the horse when the scores match and he will tell you it is fifty-fifty, exactly as the lawyers said. Click the unicorn and she got her half, he got his, and they are done.
Leave the scores uneven and neither of them will sign. The horse wants a recount. The unicorn was promised exactly half, and what she is looking at is suspiciously unlike a half.
The theme
Bitter Divorce is played on the Classic field: olive ground, navy ponds, straw enclosures. It looks like home, except that nobody has been looking after it. The hay grows in, stands up for a moment, then tips over and stays bowed. The cherries have started to drop. The golden apple is bruised and has attracted flies. The bees are on their backs.
The first-time banner shows the two of them facing away from each other with a set of scales between them, which is also the round's button.
Strategy differences
A few things we have noticed work well:
- Find the animal with less room first. That enclosure decides how big the pair can be.
- Build both enclosures, then tune. A spare wall placed inside the larger enclosure takes one off its score.
- Count the special tiles on each side before you start. An apple on one side needs ten tiles, or an apple, on the other.
- Watch the score line, not the board. Two enclosures that look the same size often are not.
- Check portals on both sides. A shared channel still merges the two enclosures into one, and then nothing counts.
One more puzzle in the daily routine
Like the other bonus rounds, Bitter Divorce is optional and has its own separate score and submission. Play it after your main daily puzzle when it comes up, and see how big a matching pair you can find.