Pentopia looks boring for exactly one minute
People say number shading is a pastime for the patient. Pentopia agrees for exactly one minute. Then a corner number demands the impossible, and patience is over.
What hooked me: the numbers count visible shaded cells along four rays, not neighbours. Place one pentomino wall wrong and three numbers lie at once. The grid takes revenge instantly. That makes Pentopia more honest than most browser puzzlers: the mistake rings now instead of hiding until the end.
A zero on the edge decides more than it seems
My favourite moment is a zero near the border. One digit, and half the grid is mapped: no shaded cells along its rays, so no pentomino enters there. Beginners walk past zeroes and poke at the middle. The middle gets solved last, once the edges already hold the shapes.
Next I take small numbers on the sides. Their sight is short and their placements are few. The first walls grow from them, and walls cut the rays of every other number. The solve grows from the edges inward, never the reverse.
What stings here
Identical pentominoes never touch, not even at corners. Sometimes two fine fives stare at each other across one diagonal, and one has to be broken. You break it, the numbers recount, and the grid turns honest again.
The "Hint" button shades one correct cell. I press it when three numbers argue and my eyes are tired.