A Gentle 8×8 Puzzle Solved with Shape Squeeze in 14 Steps

This 8×8 board rates as gentle (difficulty score 785). Solving it from scratch takes 14 logical steps, using 6 techniques: Single cell, Row/column exclusion, Adjacency clear, Region confinement, Line confinement, Shape squeeze. Every step below is forced: nothing here is a guess.

1. First, every open cell left in this region sits in column A, so its marker has to land there; that clears every other open cell in the column.
2. Next, every open cell left in this region sits in column B, so its marker has to land there; that clears every other open cell in the column.
3. Then, place a marker at C7. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 7, column C, and its region. Placing here also clears its 2 touching neighbours.
4. After that, place a marker at D3. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 3, column D, and its region. Placing here also clears its 2 touching neighbours.
5. Now, every open cell left in this region sits in row 8, so its marker has to land there; that clears every other open cell in the row.
6. From there, place a marker at A6. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 6, column A, and its region. Placing here also clears its 1 touching neighbour.
7. Following that, place a marker at B4. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 4, column B, and its region.
8. First, every open cell left in this region sits in row 5, so its marker has to land there; that clears every other open cell in the row.
9. Next, every open cell in column G belongs to the same region, so that region's marker has to be somewhere in this column; that clears every other open cell in the region.
10. Then, place a marker at H5. Column 8 has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 5, column H, and its region.
11. After that, every remaining candidate in this region touches F1 and F2, so whichever candidate ends up marked will clear them, and they can be ruled out now regardless of which one wins.
12. Now, place a marker at E1. Region has exactly one open cell left. Placing here clears the rest of row 1, column E, and its region.
13. From there, place a marker at G2. Region has exactly one open cell left.
14. Finally, place a marker at F8. Region has exactly one open cell left.

The key move here was Shape squeeze. Once you can spot that, this board falls quickly. ∎