Next weekend, LMI holds its first monthly puzzle test since all the way back to the Puzzle Marathon where I authored one puzzle. The Tapa season came in between, and there were 3 Sudoku tests as well in this time. So, I’m really looking forward to this one.
The Test theme is “No Numbers”, and has some pretty innovative puzzle types. The author is Ko Okamoto. The IB and Submission link for the same can be found here.
Right out I’ll say that the main aim in creating these was to make myself understand the types better. But, since I have created them, I thought I’d share them for others too.
Just before the IB was up, I had had the idea of something with the exact rules as Trio Cut, and planned to create it as a Norinori variant type. But as it happens, not only was it proven not to be an original idea, it actually appears in an LMI test before I can get to creating it! No worries, I’ve created one here that I’m quite happy with. As such, I was most comfortable creating this one as I have a base in Norinori.
Curve Data and Synchronized maze are types I have absolutely no experience with. The Curve Data type can surely work with fewer clues, and I bet a lot more can be done with Synchronized Maze. But I at least understand some level of solving for these now, and hopefully it works the same way for others. After all, practice is practice 😛 I must say, I’ve had a mad time getting the Curve Data too work. First Tom C tested it, found a uniqueness issue, then after I fixed, even he thought its fine, and then just as I was about to post I found an issue again! About 6 similar scenarios later(as you can see by the name of the pic once you click on it), with input from Murat, Swaroop, Para, we finally have a good puzzle. I hope.
The “It’s Yours” (had to put it in quotes because those are such commonly used words!) worked well, but ended up quite an easy difficulty level. I’m sure that in the test, there will either be larger puzzles, or smaller polyminos. Also, it won’t be as easy to determine the pairs. I liked creating this one though, and may well give it another go tomorrow/day after.
I’m not making any guarantees, but I hope to have more practice puzzles up for this test. Hope you enjoy these for now.
Puzzle No. 158 – Trio Cut
Rules – Paint some cells to make some triminos so that each trimino will be cut twice by thick lines. Each region bordered by thick lines should have 3 painted cells.
Puzzle No. 158
Puzzle No. 159 : Curve Data
Rules – Make some figures by drawing lines through the center of cells so that each figure goes through just one clue. All cells are visited by lines. A clue shows how the line passing through it turns and connects with itself, without any rotation or reflection. However, the clue does not specify length of each straight segment of the line in any way.
Puzzle No. 159
Puzzle No. 160 : Synchronized Maze.
Rules – Connect pairs of same alphabets with continuous lines. Each line should form the same shape, with rotation and reflection if necessary. Lines can’t go through blackened cells. The lines can cross each other but can’t share a path other than that.
Puzzle No. 160
Puzzle No. 161 : It’s Yours.
Rules – Put some pairs of Polyminos in the grid such that every polymino has one clue inside it. The clue in one polymino shows the exact shape without rotation or reflection of the other polymino that forms the pair. The polyminos forming a pair must touch each other orthogonally and cannot touch other pairs of polyminos.
Puzzle No. 161
PS's puzzles + 