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…
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
Daily League’s Week 9 PDF. I’ll share just the pdf links for now, till I get back to the usual frequency of posting.
The below puzzle’s pretty easy and random. Used a pattern a little bit in a newspaper puzzle and just wanted to use that pattern extensively, for no particular reason except that for the fact that its been some time since I just made a random puzzle post thats not meant for anywhere.
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.
Enjoy!
P339
I realize I’m crossing 300 with this without the usual special puzzle, but with Puzzle Marathon coming up, I’m sure everyone will have their fill of special puzzles. I’ll make it up later sometime between 300 and 400. Anyway, this was a 1 hour set at the Croatian competition. I basically started off with trying 1 classic puzzle and one variant of it, but then some pairings are just similar genres. For the variants, I’ll just put the additional rules. The Classic puzzles have links to their rules, and some are fully described here. The difficulties are obviously varied but barring the Pentomino I can’t immediately think of anything particularly difficult. All puzzles tested by Bram De Laat.
Enjoy!
P297 : Bosnian Road.
P297
P298 : Bosnian Road Odd Even – The clues only give the information that the number in that clue cell is either Odd (O) or Even(E). All the clue substitutions are non-zero.
P298
P299 : Masyu.
P299
P300 : Corral Masyu – The cells not visited by the loop must be able to reach the edge of the grid by being orthogonally connected to other such cells.
P300
P301 : Hashi (Probably the easiest puzzle of the set) – Draw single or double straight lines between the circled numbers. The number in a circle indicates how many lines must end there. The lines must run horizontally or vertically and must not cross or branch off. All circles must be connected to each other; i.e. it must be possible to travel from any circle to any other circle following the lines..
P301
P302 : Gokigen naname (Known as Slalom in some places like Croco Puzzle) – Draw exactly one diagonal line in each cell of the diagram. A number in some intersections of the grid lines denote how many diagonal lines end in this intersection. The diagonal lines must not form a closed loop.
P302
P303 : Norinori
P303
P304 : Trio Cut – 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.
P304
P305 : Easy As ABC (Range – A-C)
P305
P306 : Easy as ABC Untouch – Additionally, same letters cannot touch each other even diagonally. Range is A-D.
P306
P307 : Nurikabe
P307
P308 : Cipher Nurikabe – The numbers are replaced by letters. All instances of the same letter have same values and different letters have different values. Note that the rule says values, so one letter can stand for a multi-digit number too.
P308
P309 : Tapa
P309
P310 : Disjoint Groups Tapa – Additionally, clues in the same box cannot have the same position around them shaded. E.g. 2 clues in the same box cannot both have the cell directly above them shaded.
P310
P311 : Pentomino – Place the 12 Pentomino pieces into the grid. They can be rotated and reflected. They cannot be placed in black cells. Two pieces cannot touch each other even diagonally. The numbers outside give the number of cells occupied by pentomino pieces in that row or column. Pentominos given at the end of the post.
P311
P312 : Pentomino Areas – Instead of the numbers outside, the grid is divided into regions, each of which consists of exactly one entire pentomino.
P312
Between writing puzzles for the Polish Championship, preparing for a Sudoku Workshop I’ll be conducting this Saturday, the usual solving side of things, and the fact that its submissions time in college, I’ve been way too busy again. If you still haven’t tried, today is the last day of the December Edition of LMI Beginners’ Sudoku Contest. The author is Tom Collyer and the variants are Untouch, Killer, Outside, Anti Knight, along with the 4 Classics as usual.
Coming up this weekend is the 3rd LMI Screen Test. This one’s a bit different from the last 2, but similar in concept. There are 30 6×6 Sudokus to be solved with all kinds of variations. The solving will all be on the online interface, with no pdfs. The duration is 60 minutes of solving time (not counting the 15 seconds to read instructions that can be ended manually). The designer is Deb Mohanty.
While I’m at it, I’m looking for a team to join in the Croco Liga. Any takers?
Anyways, today’s post is just the 10 puzzles I sent for the Beginners’ Puzzle Contest hosted at the Sudokufans site, and also, I am told, an offline event in Beijing. The requirement was 10 easy/medium puzzles of 5 different genres. The genres, in order, are Yajilin, Tapa, Norinori, LITS, Bosnian Road. Click on the puzzle names for rules.
Enjoy!
Yea yea, I know I just posted a Norinori variant before this, but this one was a reject from my latest batch of newspaper puzzles from yesterday. It was rejected for being too hard for the target audience, but it is still around easy-ish to medium for the regular puzzle solvers in my opinion. I’ll resume posting again from here, hopefully. Following up from my non-puzzle post, I am finally fine. Ignore the “P232” in the file name of the puzzle below, thats just my newspaper puzzle numbering which I’m too lazy to change.
Apparently the batch I’ll be sending now ends with the exact number as of this post. This shows I’ve fallen heavily behind on the blog as the year’s gone on. Well meh, I’m still pretty active all things considered. Right? Anyway,
Rules – Shade in some cells such that there are 2 shaded cells in every region and every shaded cell has exactly one shaded cell orthoganally adjacent to it.
I’ll categorize it at medium and follow my policy of lifting the Norinori difficulties.
Enjoy!
P238
I guess a common note with this variant would be that its highly restrictive compared to the original genre, but I still think (and hope) there’s enough here to make things flow nicely. I had a lot of thought about the name, but couldn’t come up with anything good. After many suggestions by many of my puzzling friends, this was the one that won my vote.
This was supposed to be posted 6 hours ago, but I fell asleep mid-post 😐 Anyway, here it is now.
Rules – Shade some cells, so that every shaded cell has exactly one diagonally adjacent shaded cell, and this pair cannot touch another pair in any way (orthogonally or diagonally). Also, every thick outlined region contains exactly 2 shaded cells.
Rated : Medium I guess.
Enjoy!
P237
This weekend LMI hosts a Sudoku test called Fugitive Warrant authored by Seungjae Kwak and Hwangrae Lee. Its got a nice theme of criminals, a warrant, arrest, and even escape. Some really innovative variants like Jail Sudoku and Prison Break, and some familiar variants like Killer and Little Killer. There’s even a Classic thrown in there at the start. Having given the test I can say that it was quite enjoyable. The test is open for participation for more than 2 days from now.
Coming to today’s puzzle, I think its pretty obvious to any regular readers that I like this genre a lot. It was just as obvious to me in Croatia, that, at least a handful of people found the Norinoris on Borders & Beyond really tough.
The explanation seems to be that I’m possibly the only author currently who regularly creates and displays these without 2 cell regions, and therefore with slightly difficult openings. So, people who haven’t done my blog’s puzzles/the 4 that got printed in Akil Oyunlari Issue 78 (or maybe Nikoli publications’ puzzles) of this genre faced more difficulty at it than me or my test solvers(both of whom regularly tested my puzzles other than the LMI set) could foresee.
Anyway, here I wanted to stop using the L trimino for starts like I always do and I explored another probable start. The start itself isn’t much to figure out, but its a nice pattern and the rest worked out well enough, so here it is. Normally, I would be in 2 minds whether to rate it at medium, but based on past experience, I’ll give it a hard.
Rules – Shade in some cells such that there are 2 shaded cells in every region and every shaded cell has exactly one shaded cell orthoganally adjacent to it.
Enjoy!
P232
The UKPA have started something that I’m very much in favor of. Its called “Beginner’s Contests” and will apparently be a monthly puzzle contest, with numerous puzzles of just 2-3 different types. This contest is mainly for the newcomers, as there is no time limit for submissions. The puzzles won’t be completely trivial, but you have a full month basically to solve puzzles at leisure. There’s something for the experienced solvers too, you can maintain a competitive edge by submitting in usual contest speed, and then seeing where you stand in the results.
The first test is authored by Tom Collyer, and the test page, with IB, link for submissions, puzzle booklet, can be found here. It features Nurikabe, Slitherlink and Shikaku. I’d like newcomers among Indians to give this a try too.
Anyway, to today’s puzzle now.
Rated : Medium, but on the easy side.
Enjoy!
Puzzle No. 157
Update : For Puzzle 147, a link that goes to a post with a partial solution, a solving tip at the most difficult point, and Mellow Melon’s suggestion for a more logically solvable version has been added.
Right then. Firstly, I know that technically I promised at least one puzzle and technically the time I promised it was for yesterday according to India time. But then, technically, you have 4 puzzles worth of thinking here, so technically, I’m fed up of using the word “technically”.
Anyway, I was basically as lost as that sentence and any of you who have been waiting for this have Tejal Phatak to thank for making me see the clock and get these done(albeit unintentionally).
Coming to the puzzles.
Rated : Somewhere between medium and hard the two of them.
Puzzle No. 146 :
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. Additionally, all the unshaded cells must form a Nurikabe like wall. i.e. a continuous wall with no 2×2 regions.
Puzzle No. 146
Puzzle No. 147 :
Follow Masyu rules.
Follow Yajilin rules.
All Masyu circles are part of the loop.
Click here for partial solution, tip and more. Password – 147
Enjoy!
Puzzle No. 147
PS's puzzles + 