Puzzle No. 297 – 312 : Zeka 2013 Puzzle Set

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzle No. 158-161 : LMI No Numbers Practice Puzzles.

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