Puzzle No. 201-207 : Di… Practice Puzzles

Update – Thanks to Bram for pointing out that the Diayajilin actually works without the added arrows.

Right then. I haven’t posted all week since I’ve not been well. This basically meant I’m behind all my plans by 2 days, and seeing as I’m traveling for a week from Sunday, that leaves me really less time to do everything I want to. So anyway, this was the best I could force out in the little time I had. Some of the puzzles have quick fixes, one of the Yajilins has a segment given, and there are some other places where I decided to experiment a little like the Division fleet. Anyway, practice is practice, and for what its worth, here they are. It’d be weird to post these after the test anyway, and weirder to just put them away. You can find some others from other sources on the Discussion thread for Di… Anyway, I actually made a Diagonal variant of Yajilin a long while ago here. Its got some different formatting but I think the rules are pretty much the same. I must thank my testers Tom and Murat Can Tonta for getting this done so fast. I have tons of things left to do. I shall resume posting on the 7th/8th September mostly, and will mostly have a good announcement lined up too 🙂

So in order, the below puzzles are – Diayajilin(2), Disposition(with Fleet), Diversion, Diversion without Borders, Division(with Fleet), Dioxides(with 21 Os atoms, though I don’t see how that affects the solve anyway). All rules taken from the IB here. Unlike my usual style, all rules are below the respective puzzles.

Enjoy!

Diayajilin – Blacken some cells so that you can draw a single closed loop through all remaining white cells. Black cells cannot be adjacent to each other. The loop cannot touch or cross itself. Each number in the grid shows how many black cells can be seen in the direction of the arrow. Numbered cells cannot be blackened. Addendum – A loop segment is given in one of them. Also, clues pointing in two directions indicate that many number of black cells for each of the directions, and not the sum of them.

 

Disposition – Place the given fleet following the grid lines. Ships cannot touch each other even diagonally and cannot occupy cells with digits. Each number in the grid shows how many ships (Rectangles or Squares) are located in the horizontally, vertically and diagonally adjacent cells. Addendum – “?” is a digit not given to you, so it basically just means that there’s no ship segment on that cell.

Diversion – Each number in the grid shows how many mines are located in the horizontally, vertically and diagonally adjacent empty cells. The object is to reveal all the mines in the grid, providing that a cell can contain only 1 mine. Mines cannot occupy cells with digits.

Diversion without Borders – Cut the grid into 1×2 rectangles. Each number in the grid shows how many mines are located in the horizontally, vertically and diagonally adjacent empty cells. The object is to reveal all mines providing that a 1×2 rectangle can contain only 1 mine. Mines cannot occupy cells with digits.

Division – Place the given fleet and 20 mines into the grid. A cell can contain only 1 mine. Each number shows how many parts of ships OR how many mines are located in the horizontally, vertically and diagonally adjacent empty cells. Mines and ships cannot occupy digits. Ships cannot touch each other and cells with mines, not even diagonally.

Dioxides – Place letter “s” in 21 cells with letter “O”. Cells with Os(Osmium atom) cannot touch each other, not even diagonally. These, along with 2 other oxygen atoms O, will form 21 Osmium dioxides with either a 180 degree turn at the Os atom, or a 90 degree turn. i.e. atoms can’t be connected diagonally. Addendum – Test puzzle will have 27 wherever 21 is above.

Puzzle No. 200 : Domino Loop [Marathon]

Did I really make a Marathon of a new hybrid? (Well at least new to this blog, and there’s a good chance that name’s been used elsewhere too, but I’ll stick with it till someone says so 😛 )

Anyway, quite many competitions this weekend.

1. USPC – This one, messed up bad. Long story short, I didn’t realize the test had started until there were just 50 minutes remaining. I submitted what little I could, and just couldn’t finish the Gapped Kakuro in time. I’ll be solving the rest of them later today sometime.

Also, Congrats to Thomas Snyder for winning his 6th title.

2. UKPC – I was just tired I think. Not at all happy with my performance. But, anyway, figured out a few of the new puzzle types on the spot so moderately satisfied with that. This one’s still going on btw. You can still participate for a day or so I think.

3. LMI Killer Shootout – This one’s complicated. I’m happy and not happy with how I did at the same time. Anyway, this one’s still going on too. Whole of Monday and Tuesday too.

Now back to the puzzle. I took a long time deciding what type I wanted to do for this one. Thats why, the few days delay in between 199 and 200. I finally settled on this, and I hope its fun. Its kind of a cross over between Norinori and Country Road.

Rules – Shade in some cells such that every region has 2 shaded cells and every shaded cell has exactly one shaded cell orthogonally adjacent to it. Additionally, draw a loop passing through all the remaining cells and passing through every region exactly once.

Rated : Marathon.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 200

Puzzle No. 199 : Graffiti Snake

This is the other UKPC puzzle. Refer to my previous post for details. Now, for 200, I haven’t really had time to even think of something. Tomorrow, I have a bit of free time, so will see what I can come up with then, but I wouldn’t expect much. Lets see.  As it is, I’m posting this early as I’m exhausted for the 3rd day running and will probably doze off soon enough.

Anyway,

Rules – Paint some cells black to form a wall. The numbers outside the grid indicate the number of blackened cells in the corresponding direction, in order, as in a Paint by Number puzzle. If there is more than one blackened block in a row or column there has to be a white cell between the blocks. Additionally, a snake must pass through all the remaining white cells, moving horizontally and vertically and not touching itself, not even diagonally. The head and tail of the snake are given as the gray circles.

Rated – Hard? Maybe.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 199

Puzzle No. 198 : Transparent Tapa [Formerly Tapa Mosaic]

The last 4 times I’ve uploaded these, they were under the name “Tapa Mosaic“. Then Serkan told me that name’s already in use. So I’ve changed it to Transparent, or conceptually transparent clues Tapa. I hope thats fine, and not in use as well 😛 If it is, I shall rename it Controversial Tapa. I promise.

Anyway, naming crisis aside, this is one of 3 puzzles I’d sent over to the UKPA for the UK Puzzle Championship(which is open to participants from all countries, and should be a quality contest). As it was the first time I’d contributed for a National Championship, I really didn’t have a good idea of the difficulty required, and that showed. So, out of the 3 I sent, only the Regional Yajilin (under the name Heyajilin) got selected. I see no point in keeping the others lying around, and as I am again short on time with all the visa troubles, I thought I’ll while away 2 days with these.

Rules for the newly named Transparent Tapa – All classic Tapa rules apply, except that even the clue cells can(not a necessity) be part of the Tapa wall. e.g. a “5″ clue can make a “X” shaped pentomino across the 9 cells it is in the middle of, but not a “P” shaped one. The “?” clue means the clue can be any non-zero digit and will be determined during the solve.

Rated : Hard.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 198

Puzzle No. 196 and 197 : Bosnian Road, Tapa

Update : I was all ready to post this last night, but wordpress bailed on me again. Even now I had to go back to the base html to make the upload and post. Bah. 

Its been a mad few days. I am already exhausted with a hectic weekend ahead 😐 Anyway, I’ll upload whatever I can. I made these 2 quickly yesterday but as I said in the non-puzzle post earlier, there’s been a problem with wordpress.

Rated : Around easy and medium.

Rules for Bosnian Road – Draw a continuous snake-like loop of one-cell width, that does not touch itself, even diagonally. It does not go through clue cells. The clues indicate how many of the 8(or less for edges and corners) cells around the clue cell the loop passes through. This does not necessarily imply that all these cells have to be passed through at once, they can be broken up too(I guess you can think of them as Minesweeper-like clues).

Rules for Tapa.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 196

Puzzle No. 197

Non-Puzzle Post : Why, wordpress?

So for the last two days this blog hasn’t been in the best of shape from my point of view. I couldn’t post links, and just about squeezed out the Yajilin variant before the problem got worse and I couldn’t post anything at all. Anyway, as you can see, that is now fixed. I’ll compensate for yesterday’s absence tonight. As of now, I have to rush to college to get a document for Visa preparations for Croatia 2012. 🙂

Beginners’ Contest August just got over btw. Akil Oyunlari Magazine competition is this weekend. Here’s a recap-linking of the practice puzzles –

Signage by Naoki Inaba.

Skyscrapers Rising by Gorogoro.

Skyscrapers Rising by Anurag.

Nurikabe Loop and Spiral Battleships by myself.

There’s quite a few other innovative types, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Puzzle No. 195 : Yajilin [Domino]

I realized all too late that this type, by definition, requires either an even dimension or a central clue to keep the symmetry. There’s really no time to go back to the central part and fix it, so I’ll put it up anyway.

There seems to be some problem with wordpress right now, so no formatting of this post.

Rules – Shade some cells, and then draw a single closed loop passing through all the remaining cells. Every shaded cell has exactly one shaded cell adjacent to it. The clues give the number of shaded cells(not number of pairs) in the direction of the arrow.

Rated : Hard due to a first time, and because I myself had a bit of difficulty getting out of the normal Yajilin mentality for it.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 195

Puzzle No. 194 : Country Road/Masyu

So… umm.. I hope someone’s pleased to see this. Anyway, TBH, he helped me more than the other way round as I was all over the place on what type I wanted to do today.  So when I saw the comment, I just put this one together quickly, because, well, I’ve still got a lot on my plate (refer to yesterday’s pointless post). I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

On a side note, I think Country Roads with symmetric regions are very limiting in a lot of ways. But I can’t stop doing that, maybe because I like it, or maybe because I just feel lazy and this way I just need to copy-paste one half of the grid into the other and so save myself half the work. Whatever be the reason, it shall mostly continue.  Because I like it.

On another side note, I recently got my 4th salary for providing puzzles for life-365. Which means I have earned about 2-3rd of the participation fee at Croatia just through this. Cool eh?

On yet another side note, this is the 400th puzzle I have ever created, since starting on December 23rd. And I make too many side notes.

Rules for Country Road.

Rules for Masyu.

Combine ’em. Solve ’em. Enjoy ’em.

Rated – A medium-hard level puzzle made in a state of immense anxiety(not related to the puzzle itself). I make too many medium level puzzles.

Puzzle No. 194

Non-Puzzle post : Everything’s moving so slowly!

Yea, I’m not gonna say a single word about the title except that its true.

Anyway, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, and I don’t think I’ll be able to put up a puzzle today, because my brain’s just not working enough.

Instead, I will remind anyone who has not participated that LMI Beginners’ Contest August edition is still going on, and you can all participate, and indeed, most of you already have! It has something in it whether you are a seasoned solver looking for practice in a sprint scenario, or someone who has a thirst for Sudoku-solving but doesn’t know where to get easy, quality ones.

I shall be back posting from tomorrow hopefully, until then, Happy Mid-Month-Madness to all.

Puzzle No. 193 : Spiral Battleships(s) [LMI Practice puzzles again]

Right. The first one of these is pretty easy. I just did it to familiarize myself. The 2nd one, I decided to experiment with the layout a little, as the various features of the variant can still be explored with different layouts as long as the numbers have a path to follow. So here they are. I’ve given the fleet below which is common for both puzzles. Of course, the labeling of the fleet shall be determined over the course of the solve, as the rules show.

Rules(from the AO competition IB again) –

1.Locate the given fleet in the grid. The ships cannot touch each other, not even diagonally.
2.Clues outside the grid indicate the sum of ship segments in the corresponding directions.
3.Ship segments are numbered from 1 to 20, starting from the entrance of the spiral and moving towards the center.

Rated Easy and Medium respectively.

Enjoy!

Puzzle No. 193 – I

Puzzle No. 193 – II

10-ship fleet