Puzzle No. 282 : LITS

Daily League Update –

Wednesday – Pointing Evens Sudoku by Bastien.

Thursday – Argyle Sudoku by Rishi.

I have many things going on right now. Among them, is the fact that I have to wake up early tomorrow, as I have been called to my college to attend the Annual Day prize function where they will acknowledge my puzzle-related achievements in the past year. Obviously, this is a really nice thing to happen, and I will need to sleep early to make sure I make it on time tomorrow. What this means is that there is no way I expected to be posting today.

However, I had to squeeze out 10 puzzles for the newspaper so I can send a batch tomorrow, and while doing so, this LITS was produced. I made a mistake while drawing it in my notebook, but then realized that this is still solvable. But its too hard for me to send for the newspaper. So, here it is. Its still probably just a tricky medium for an experienced WPC level solver though. Enjoy!

Rules for LITS.

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Puzzle No. 280, 281 : Regional Yajilin, Antidiagonal Sums Sudoku

Daily league update :

On Saturday, Bram posted a No 10 Sudoku. Kwaka came up with an innovative variant called Mickey Mouse on Sunday. Fred posted a tricky Extra Regions Sudoku yesterday, and here is my contribution below. Oh and the combined Week 2 PDF has been released, and is publicly available here, with the usual target solve times for different levels of solvers.

Coming to the blog post now, I have had Sudokucup 9 hanging over my head through the weekend, and so the reason for the delay in posting. I thought I’d make it up by posting 2 puzzles again. My week  3 of the Daily League went really well and I’m leading that week for now, although its still open for solving and adding your time on the spreadsheet that can be found on our facebook group. The lead up being so good, I was hoping for a good showing in Sudokucup 9, and thankfully I had that, even if I did keep putting it off for not being in the best of health. I finished at 8th place.

The Regional Yajilin is a reject from one of the many other sets I’m working on. It might be tricky if you’re not familiar with looping techniques but should go along fine otherwise. The Antidiagonal Sums Sudoku isn’t too tricky.

For 280 : Follow Regional Yajilin rules. Some loop segments are given.

For 281 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, each of the main diagonals must contain exactly 3 distinct digits. One digit is the sum of the other two.

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 278, 279 : An Irregular Sudoku and an Irregular Parquet

Daily League update :

Week 3 of the daily league has gone on smoothly. On a personal note, the variants have suited me a lot. I have been quite good in recent times on various sites when it comes to Diagonals and Irregulars and Killer is always a favorite. So this week has seen me get a few top times (so far!) and I’m quite happy with my solving here. My last post teased Bastien’s Diagonal. It is now available for solving here. Also available are an Irregular-Nonconsecutive combination sudoku by Rishi, and an Irregular Sudoku with a cool layout by Tom. For more details on how you can compete in the solving or contribute in the creating, do check out our facebook group.

Back to today’s post, I guess the Irregular fever has hit me too after the quality ones above. Mine’s not that challenging, probably on the easier side of a medium. It took me a long time to think of a puzzle type that might work nicely with irregular regions thats not already popular (else Heyawacky would’ve been an easy choice). Parquet is a genre by Naoki Inaba, although probably not under that name. It was brought to my attention by Bram when I was looking for regional variants for my LMI test last September, and I used it and liked creating it. I just thought it might be nice with Irregular regions too. It turned out easy, but I think it works well. Anyway, this very likely ends the double post series with the same variations. I hope people enjoyed it, I know some did 🙂

For 278 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Instead of 3×3 boxes, there are 9-cell regions that must contain the digits 1-9.

For 279 : Follow Parquet rules. Instead of 2×2 areas, there are irregular areas of different sizes that are divided into two smaller areas, exactly one of which must be shaded.

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 276, 277 : A Queen Sudoku and a Queen Fillomino

Daily League update –

I built it up in my last post and Fred posted it soon after, a Killer Sudoku. Not just any Killer, a Killer where all cages contain 4 cells. Also, the Queen Sudoku below is part of the Daily League too. My Tuesday contribution (I’d already shared it in group earlier as I didn’t have the Fillomino ready yet).  Coming soon is the Wednesday puzzle from Bastien. After last week’s splendid Arrow, this week he’s set to share a Diagonal Sudoku, so keep a look out for that a bit later.

So the Queen, it turned out a bit hard, even with all the givens. There’s a big deduction here that’s difficult to spot. The Queen Fillomino is something I like, and with the rule-set there might actually be a possibility of a Queen-less Queen Fillomino that uses the Queen logic a lot. Not tried that yet though, but I got that feeling while creating this one. This one’s probably about medium level.

Anyway,

For 276 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the digit 9 acts like a Queen would in chess, and no 9 should be able to attack another 9.

For 277 : Follow regular Fillomino rules. Additionally, the 1 (single cell polyomino) acts like a Queen would in chess and no 1 should be able to attack another 1.

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 274, 275 : A Diagonal Count Sudoku and a Diagonal Count LITS

Daily League update –

Para contributed a Distance Sudoku on Saturday, that went really well for me :p After that, earlier today/yesterday depending on the part of the world you’re in, Seungjae Kwak (Kwaka) contributed a Quadruple Sudoku, that can be found on facebook here. Fred Stalder has just told me he will soon be posting his Monday contribution for Week 3, a Killer Sudoku. Check for that sometime later today too.

I think both of these are of a medium difficulty. I’m a fan of Diagonal variants in general, and I was adamant for there to be a LITS variant here just like I was with the Snake variant.

For 274 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the clues outside show the number of different digits in that direction.

For 275 : Follow regular LITS rules. Additionally, the clues outside show the number of shaded cells in that direction.

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 272, 273 : A Descriptive Pairs Sudoku and a Descriptive Pairs Snake

Daily League Update :

Earlier today/yesterday, depending on the part of the world you’re in, Tom Collyer shared his contribution for Friday, a Classic Sudoku.

Also, Tom has made a nice document with Week 1’s 4 Sudokus and you can view that pdf here. The pdf also features the best timing from our little group of solvers, and an interpretation from that of the target times for different solvers.

Now to today’s pair. The Snake is small and maybe easy, but I was pretty adamant to get a Snake variant into this series and this seemed to work well. The Sudoku came out nicely and I actually think more can be done with this type. I’d rate it at a medium.

For 272 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, for every pair of outside clues X and Y, at least one of these cases is true :

1) X is in the Yth position in that direction.

2) Y is in the Xth position in that direction.

For 273 : Locate a Snake of one-cell width in the grid, that does not touch itself even diagonally. The snake travels in sequence 1-2-3…9-1-2-3…9 and so on. The length of the snake is unknown but head and tail are given.

for every pair of outside clues X and Y, at least one of these cases is true :

1) X is in the Yth position in that direction.

2) Y is in the Xth position in that direction.

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 270,271 : A Copy Sudoku and a Copy Heyawacky

Firstly, a daily league update :

Yesterday was Bastien‘s day, and he provided quite an amazing Arrow Sudoku for us to solve. Unfortunately, I got inadvertently lucky, and had an unbelievable time on it. But I’ll take it 😛 This Arrow Sudoku is difficult but comes highly recommended from our group as an excellent logical construction.

Today is Rishi‘s day and he’s posted a No Donkey Step Sudoku a while back. I’ve not yet solved it, but I’m sure it’ll continue the all round high quality of the league so far. Do check out those blog links and/or our facebook group to know more/contribute yourself either in solving or constructing.

Now, back to today’s post. I’ve had continual health issues, and couple that with working on a few sets, I haven’t had much time for posting here. I still want to keep the series going, so two easy ones today, but I tried to use the variation as much as I could.

Now these might just as well have been called Clone Sudoku but I like the name Copy, and also I like cages for solving convenience in the puzzle. Its been suggested to me to make the cages of different pairs into different colors but that might take a while doing, so if anyone else wants that feel free to ask and I’ll provide it in time.

For 270 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the same shape cages are copies of each other and must contain the same digits in the same positions (no rotations/reflections)

For 271 :  Follow regular Heyawacky rules. Additionally the same shape cages are copies of each other and if a position is shaded in one it has to be shaded in the other too (no rotations/reflections)

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 268, 269 : A Windoku and a Windokabe

This is a continuation of the Daily League on facebook, that has a new and improved name now – League of Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen 🙂 . After my Palindrome Sudoku, there was a Thermo Sudoku by Seungjae Kwak to end week 1. Since Kwaka has no blog of his own, at this point you have two options.

1) Wait for the pdf we will release with all the week’s Sudokus in it.

2) Visit the facebook group, of course.

Earlier today was the start of week 2, and its started of nicely with a Clone Sudoku by Fred Stalder that can be seen here. I will, henceforth, be providing daily league updates so you know the variants on each specific day and how best to reach them.

I have taken Tuesday, so this Windoku is part of that, I am posting it early as I’m a bit unwell so I’ll probably be away resting later on. The Windoku is probably on the easy side, and the puzzle variant is easy too.

For 268 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the shaded 3×3 boxes must also contain the digits 1-9.

For 269 : Follow regular Nurikabe rules. Additionally, if two cells in the same row/column are in the same position of their respective boxes, they must both be different (i.e. one stream and one island). e.g. In the puzzle below, R2C4 and R2C9 are 2 such cells, as they are the top right corner of their respective boxes and in the same row.

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 266,267 : A Palindrome Sudoku and a Palindrome Masyu

On a lot of fronts, its been a horrible start to the New Year for me so far.  However, one good thing stands out right now, and that is the start of “Champion Sudoku”. Basically, me and my fellow bloggers Rishi Puri, Tom Collyer, Fred Stalder, Seungjae Kwak , etc. (the list is growing but these are the 5 authors confirmed this week so far) have planned a series of Sudoku variants that will be released in a PDF at the week’s end. If you are interested in joining in with this project, either to solve along, or to contribute, or anything else, please get in touch, or else join our facebook group.

My turn was a Palindrome Sudoku that you see below. I find this one quite tricky and its been confirmed by most of the above top solvers as such. The Palindrome Masyu has a tricky bit in the middle too. So I’d rate both at a light hard maybe.

For 266 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. The numbers formed by the digits on the gray lines are palindromes, that is to say, they can be read equally in both directions.

For 267 : Follow regular Masyu rules, except that the circles aren’t given. Instead there are shaded areas. Every cell of these areas must contain a Masyu circle, black or white. Also, each distinct shaded area is a Palindrome, so a certain color circle on one end means the same color circle on the other end and so on.

Enjoy!

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Puzzle No. 264,265 : A Skyscraper Sudoku and a Skyscraper Pentomino

I have a new gmail id! I have updated my About the blog section with this and my facebook address. Not sure exactly why, but approachability is the vague reasoning I guess. I shall also soon add a few more links as my favorites. I’ve been meaning to do so for a loooong time, and should finally get around to that during the weekend.

I didn’t want to use the obvious Puzzle complement like a Fillomino Skyscrapers, or Tapa Skyscrapers, I wanted to try something new (at least, something I haven’t solved before). However, I liked the Tapa Skyscrapers idea as a base, so tried it on other genres. I eventually landed up on Pentominos. This seemed to work pretty well. The ending became a bit difficult but I think it goes smoothly enough.

As for the Sudoku, I was and still am pretty sad about needing the 4 digits But overall I guess it worked out well. I think the difficulty is around medium.

For 264 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, each number in the grid represents the height of the skyscraper in each cell. The digits outside the grid indicate the number of skyscrapers seen from the corresponding direction.

For 265 : Place 12 different pentominos in the grid (as shown in the bank). Rotations and reflections are allowed. Pentominos can’t touch each other even diagonally, and cannot be placed on cells marked with “x”. Numbers outside the grid show the number of separate shaded-cell segments visible in that direction. A segment of length n, is taken as a skyscraper of height n. Skyscrapers of length n can block visibility of other skyscrapers of length n and below (which obviously means length n can repeat in a row/column).

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