I think this was a set I wrote when I wasn’t that well. That’s not meant as an excuse, but as a warning – I tend to make things harder when I’m ill. However, some of these are also rejects from newspaper bunches for being not-too-easy (Heyawake for example) which means there’s some easy in there too. Unlike my previous puzzle set posts, I decided to find out a bit more this time, which basically means that I can add the points that were assigned to each puzzle. The Skyscrapers Pentomino was not used, but since it was not used for being too hard, I’ve simply valued it at points higher than any of the others.
The Championship had 5 rounds and then a playoff at the end. The first round had the largest time slot and so two of the hardest puzzles of my set, the Yajisan Kazusan and the Shakashaka were moved into that round. Two others, Heyawake and Multiplicative Corral were moved to the Playoff/Final. There’s no point valuing for these, but I’d put their difficulty around the LITS or the Country Road, something of a medium difficulty.
There were 25 participants, and Jan Novotný emerged as the winner, mainly by having a good playoff, as Matej Uher was ahead after the first 5 rounds (377.8 – 299.2). In fact, Jan was 4th before the playoffs, behind Jana Vodičková (332.5) and Jakub Hrazdira (306). Congrats to him, and the other qualifiers. For my round (the 4th round, valued at 110 points), the top scorers were Matej Uher (85), Jakub Ondroušek (77) and Jakub Hrazdira (62). I’m posting only my own puzzles but as a test solver for the event in general, I did have access to the other puzzles too, and the quality is quite high throughout. If you’re interested in knowing more, or you are a Czech/Slovakian interested in becoming a member of the HALAS Association (where I think you will gain access to all these puzzles), I’d suggest you contact Jiří Hrdina, who co-ordinated/organized this Championship.
Rules/links and points –
P382 : Bosnian Road (8 points).
P383 : Country Road (12 points).
P384 : Easy As Tapa (14 points) – Follow regular Tapa rules. Clues outside must be placed in the first unshaded cell in that row or column.
P385 : Fillomino (7 points).
P386 : Heyawake (Playoff puzzle).
P387 : LITS (12 points).
P388 : Masyu [Alternative] (4 points) – Follow regular Masyu rules. Additionally, the loop cannot pass two circles of the same colour continuously.
P389 : Multiplicative Corral (Playoff Puzzle) – Draw a single closed loop along the grid lines that contains all the numbered squares and does not touch itself, not even at a point. Each given number is the product of two numbers: the number of interior squares that are directly in line vertically with that number’s square (including the square itself) times the number of interior squares that are directly in line horizontally with that number’s square (again, including that square itself).
P390 : Nanro (14 points).
P391 : Norinori (5 points).
P392 : Product Heyawacky (25 points). Follow regular Heyawacky rules. Additionally, the number at the top left of a cage is the product of shaded cells in each different region, only pertaining to its area within the cage.
P393 : Shakashaka (40 points).
P394 : Skyscraper Pentomino (60 points?). (Edit – It should be noted that the puzzle in the link has “X” marks where pentominos can’t be placed, whereas the puzzle below has black cells denoting that)
P395 : Sum Skyscraper (9 points). Follow regular Skyscrapers rules. This skyscraper uses the digits 1~7. The numbers outside indicate the sum of the visible digits.
P396 : Yajisan Kazusan (40 points).
Now, the puzzles! Enjoy!
P382
P383
P384
P385
P386
P387
P388
P389
P390
P391
P392
P393
P394
P395
P396
PS's puzzles + 
So far I’ve solved the Tapa, the Heyawake, the Masyu, the LITS, the Norinori and the Yajisan Kazusan. I really liked the Kazusan, how the consecutive 1-2-3-4s turned out. The Masyu was fun too, reminded me of a Numberlink. The LITS took me a few tries, I kept doing the same mistake again and again ending up with one isolated piece.
However, I found the Product Heyawacky definitely the hardest of the puzzles I tried. I almost solved it (took probably about five hours with a night’s sleep in between) just to find I had an error. Was it hard to make?
The Yajisan Kazusan was one of my own favorites in this set too. From my view point as well, the Product Heyawacky is harder than the YK as well as the Shakashaka, but I let the Czech organizers keep the points structure, since there’s more sets other than mine and they’ll be able to reach more consistent evaluations. I suppose it differs depending on the genres different people have solved before.
The Product Heyawacky wasn’t that hard to create. I’m generally comfortable with Heyawacky itself and I tend to transition well to variations/hybrids when I’m comfortable with the base puzzle. The hardest ones to make in this set were the Nanro (mainly because I keep getting this frustrating feeling that I can do better with the genre) and the Skyscrapers Pentomino (I always struggle with packing puzzles).
6:35 on Country Road