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 208-210 – Bosnian Road, Diagonal Neighbors Tapa, Domino Loop

Update – The Tapa Diagonal Neighbors has now been fixed. Thanks to Para for pointing out the error. Apologies to anyone who began to solve it. 

I’m back home after a week away in South India, where I got burnt alive 80 % of the time. The other 20 % of the time, I tried to create a few puzzles. The majority of these have gone towards my newspaper employers, and another percentage will be held back for future tests, etc. But a few have nowhere to go and shall therefore be here for all to see, and hopefully enjoy. The first of these, I actually made just before my trip. I had to create a few Bosnian Roads for a competition, and I ended up wanting to do one more. The second one, Is a failed attempt at trying something with my Diagonal Neighbors Tapa variant. Its still alright to solve though. The last one, I again forgot that my favorite dimensions of 13×13 are not suitable for a domino-based puzzle. So the little cross mark, but I was just about able to shift it right to the corner for what its worth. This puzzle has some very tricky starting steps, but goes smoothly towards the end once you get through them. In any case, I do believe its a better “introduction puzzle” than the marathon I threw at you puzzle lovers as my 200th.

On a side note, the September Edition of LMI Beginners’ Sudoku Contests has begun and as organizer, I invite and encourage all Sudoku enthusiasts  (beginners/newcomers especially) to participate.

All puzzles below rated Medium to Hard.

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 Diagonal Neighbors Tapa – Follow regular Tapa rules. Additionally, every shaded cell must have at least one diagonally adjacent shaded cell. A “?” clue functions as any other non-zero numeric clue, you just need to determine what the number is.

Rules for Domino Loop – 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. Cells marked with “X” contain neither domino cells nor loop segments.

Puzzle No. 208 : Bosnian Road

Puzzle No. 209 : Tapa Diagonal Neighbors

Puzzle No. 210 : Domino Loop

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