An article published, a new initiative planned, and more [Non-Puzzle Post]

I’ll keep this short-ish, lest my readers have an overload of reading with all the pages I’ve just created.

So then, firstly, I’ve added anything I can think of about my personal life, plans, and what not, in a new About me page, because people told me its a good idea. *shrugs*

Secondly, I had an idea on how to puzzle-ify a photography contest. Go to the Photo A Day Experiment page to know more.

Thirdly, best for last and all that, I recently notified my employers, Life-365, about the Indian Puzzle Championship. They were interested in publishing an article, so I gave them some input. The resultant article is quite wonderfully done, and can be seen here –

A history of Indian Puzzle Championship

at the top of the sports page. Everything apart from the picture, the introduction, and the very last paragraph, is as I sent it. The picture, as many puzzlers will recognize, is the logo of Thomas Snyder’s LMI test, the 2011 Double Decathlon. I’m guessing that they googled images for puzzles and liked it and used it. It actually works out nicely as the photo gives a nice preview of what to expect. The other additions, the introduction and the conclusion, are also nice inclusions. The puzzlers that I gave a mention to are the 2012 IPC authors, Deb Mohanty, Serkan Yürekli,  Thomas Snyder and Palmer Mebane.

The newspaper has done a wonderful job of it I think, and it shows how nice an article looks when its not cut or edited and contains everything that I, the writer, tried to convey. Even though it is public domain, I believe that since I’m linking to them, I might as well say a few words about Life-365. This is a newspaper daily that I like even other than the puzzle-related enthusiasm it’s owners have, because it is based completely on positive messages. Its a refreshing read in contrast to all the negative news being published these days as it tries to cover as many “feel-good” stories as possible.

So thats that. What do you think about the article, readers? I’m very interested to know.

Puzzle No. 408 : Domino Loop [UKPC Surplus]

In about 10 days, two National Championships shall be held, both online, both open to all International competitors as well. One of them is the Indian Puzzle Championship, where I will be participating for a place on the Indian team. The other is the UK Puzzle Championship. I plan to participate here, but can only solve 22 Puzzles out of the 26 in the set, because the other 4 are written by me. These include a Nurikabe, my first attempt at a Yosenabe, an attempt at making a snake variant based on Yajisan Kazusan-like logic, and a Corral. I had sent one more puzzle for this Championship, which was surplus to the requirement and took the most time for the testers, out of the 5.

Below is this puzzle. I don’t think its too difficult, but I’m not gonna listen to me, I’m used to types like these. Domino Loop is a type I introduced here a while ago, and was essentially a hybrid of Country Road and Norinori. For the puzzle below however, I decided to remove the Country Road restriction, making the rules simpler.

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.

Enjoy!

P408

Puzzle No. 407 : Confused Knights Sudoku [Daily League]

Firstly, PDFs!

Week 21.

Week 22.

Also, Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Today’s Sudoku is pretty tricky. There’s a bit of narrow logic in between thats difficult to see. I’ve been playing around with many Knight-related ideas recently, and I like this one more than my Galloping Horses variant clarity-wise. At least I don’t think it needs pictures to explain things 😛

Anyway,

Rules – Follow Sudoku rules. Use the Anti-Knight restriction i.e. treating the digits as Knight pieces in chess, same digits cannot attack each other. But the digits that never appear in a shaded cell are exempt from the Anti-Knight restriction. Alternatively, any digit that appears even once in a shaded cell needs to follow the Anti-Knight restriction throughout the grid.

Enjoy!

P407

Puzzle No. 406 : LITS

The need to be positive again…

Rules for LITS.

Enjoy!

P406

 

Puzzle No. 402-405 : Fillominos!

Update : Slight issues in Puzzle 403 and 404 fixed. Apologies.

Firstly, links!

This coming weekend, the 7th round of the 2013 WPF Sudoku Grand Prix, the Turkish Round, takes place on the Logic Masters India site. The weekend after that, the 8th round immediately follows. This is the Italian Round and it will also take place on the Logic Masters India site. The weekend after that, on July 7th to be exact, the Indian Puzzle Championship takes place, on, you guessed it, the Logic Masters India site.

On a more personal note now (And also concerning people in Chennai), my regular readers might remember about my and Rohan’s contribution to an event in Delhi recently. The same organizers, SportzConsult, are now organizing a similar event in Chennai, the Chennai Brain Games, in August. Just like last time, me and Rohan will be contributing, specifically for the Mental Math, Sudoku and Puzzle events. The Instruction booklets are already out essentially, and can be found on that link.

Now, to Fillominos! I went a little crazy with the genre trying to make a simple one without much implied-logic for the newspaper publishers, and miserably failing at that. In the end, I did manage to get one with the intended difficulty out, but I met these 4 along the way and they didn’t know where to go, so I told them about this place. Yeah, I talk to Fillominos now. Aannyywayyyy….

Fillomino Rules.

Enjoy!

P402

P403

P404

P405

Puzzle No. 401 : Diamond Fort Sudoku [Daily League]

There’s many many competitions coming, but I’ll get to that tomorrow in a more casual post. In the meantime, did you check out Puzzle No. 399? 😛

Today’s Sudoku is an idea I came up with 5 days ago. I’d probably have called it Diamond Sudoku, except that that’s taken. In the end, after many good suggestions from friends, I decided there isn’t really a better name to describe things than this. This one can be a little tricky to get used to, as is the case with any new rule-set.

Also, Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the digits on a diamond are each greater than the digit in the middle of the diamond. Also, sum of it’s horizontal digits must be equal to the sum of it’s vertical digits.

Enjoy!

P401

Protected: Puzzle No. 400 Solution.

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Puzzle No. 400 : Fillomino [No Rectangles] [Big]

Rules – Follow regular Fillomino rules. Additionally, none of the polyominoes can form a rectangle.

Solution to this puzzle can be found here. Password – NRFillo.

Wait, why am I posting 400 before I find 399? I thought I said I’d find 399! And why am I linking to the solution to this puzzle? What’s wrong with me?!

Heh. Whatever. Enjoy! Once you solve this, be sure to check the solution. You know… for tallying purposes.

P400

Puzzle No. 399 : Norinori [Big]

Rules –  Shade in some cells such that every region contains exactly two shaded cells, and every shaded cell shares an edge with exactly one other shaded cell.

…

I seem to have lost the puzzle. Oops. I need to sleep now, I’ll search for and upload it within 9 hours.  Sorry folks.

Edit : I now seem to have misplaced the puzzle somewhere.. Maybe its somewhere in the next post…

Puzzle No. 398 : Between Walls Sudoku [Daily League]

Firstly, PDF!

Week 20 PDF.

Also, Remember that you can solve the puzzles from the League online on the Sudokucup Guest League page with a 24h delay.

Also, if you haven’t yet participated in the latest edition of LMI Beginners’ Sudoku Contest, what’re you waiting for?! 😛

Now to today’s Sudoku. There was a recent series of 8 on Krtek’s Cup called Between Walls. This was a slightly varied form of Between 1 and 9 Sudoku, with different numbers forming the walls. However, the numbers were given in the rules, or were red to let you know which they are. I had the thought then that it might be fun without knowing what the numbers are and decided to give it a try. The result is below. I believe it isn’t too tricky, but could have a narrow path which is difficult to see at some points. The hard rating is more for that than the logic involved.

Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the clues outside the grid give the sum of numbers that are between the walls in that row or column. The 2 numbers that form these walls are unknown but constant throughout the puzzle (and need to be determined by the solver).

Enjoy!

P398