Puzzle #141: Japanese Sums

This weekend is the Japanese Sums Contest on Logic Masters Deutschland. It will feature 14 different Japanese Sums puzzles, one standard and 13 variants. All puzzles will use a 1~6 digit subset, instead of the 1~9 digit set I prefer. the 1~6 digit subset is most likely chosen as this leaves for puzzles that can be solved far quicker as Japanese Sums puzzles tend to take relatively long to solve. My puzzle therefore will not be the best practise for this test as it uses digits 1~9 but it's fun to solve.
On an unrelated note, all puzzle sets from the 24 hour puzzle championship are available on the WPF-forum. So if you have nothing to, that should give you plenty of puzzles to solve.

[Edit: Misclued number fixed in column 8]

Rules for Japanese Sums

Rules: Japanese Sums

Place the digits 1-9 in some of the squares, so that no digit is repeated in any row or column. Sums on the outside indicate the sums of consecutive digits in that row or column. Each sum is seperated by at least one empty square.

Puzzle #140: Broken Sudoku

At first I had tried to find a subset of 10 different pentominoes to create two 5x5 squares, but I wasn't able to do it. I'm not sure if it is even possible. It wouldn't be the first time I've tried to do something which wasn't possible at all. I think though that repeated shapes make it a bit more interesting as that gives more options for the 2 puzzles. The puzzle isn't too hard, but you have to remember that shapes can be rotated and mirrored, so you can't be sure of the placement of some numbers as certain pieces have symmetry. For 5x5 Sudokus I think they're pretty nice this way.

Rules for Sudoku

Fit the 10 pentomino pieces in the two 5x5 grids without overlapping. Pieces can be mirrored and rotated. Then solve the resulting Jigsaw Sudokus.

Puzzle #139: ABC Decoder

This weekend is the Word Show test on Logic Master India, written by Nikola Zivanovic. It features 12 different puzzle types which all involve words. It includes standard puzzles types like Scrabble and Word Search, but also common puzzle types featuring words, like Word Nurikabe, Full Tapa and Sigma Snake. there are a few examples of some types on my blog. There's a Full Tapa in my TVC XI practise set, a Snail's Nest in my European Championship set (although the actual one will probably be more like the one featured at this year's USPC) and a Word Nurikabe from last year's 24 Hour Puzzle Championship, which I haven't seen anywhere else.
Today's puzzle will be an ABC Decoder. It's a type I always really enjoy. Part of the reason is that Richard Stolk always makes really nice ones. These feature often in Breinbrekers. They always have some nice theme going on in the words. I've made a few of these puzzles before, one of them featured in my LMI Hybrids test. It was made a bit easier so it would be more suitable for a puzzle competition. This puzzle features all puzzle genres. It is most likely harder than the one that will feature on the test, but it will still be good practise on how to solve these types of puzzles.

Rules:

Every letter is encoded with a different integer from 1~26. In the given set of Puzzle Genres all letters occur except the letter Q. The numbers behind the words indicate the sum of the value of each letter in each word. Determine the value of all letters.

13th 24 Hour Puzzle Championship

The 13th 24 Hour Puzzle Championship was held last weekend. Nikola Zivanovic was the winner, with a close margin over Florian Kirch in second place. Peter Hudak completed the podium finishing third. Full results can be seen here.
I think this set worked out better than last year's. The topscorer in my set was Florian Kirch with 845/1000 points and everyone solving scored at least 100 points.

Opposed to last year, I will release my entire set in a single post. Last year I was still trying to keep up one post a day, but I've let that go for a while now. The post will not contain any examples, but you can see examples of each genre in the instruction booklet. My set is the 12th set, so you'll have to scroll down a bit. The puzzles have their value listed and are valued at about 10 points per minute.

Puzzles can be found below.

Puzzle #138: Pentopia

This seems to be one of the puzzle types I come back to regularly. I just like constructing them. People seem to generally like the type and it's hard to find any of them anywhere else. Last year there was a one on the World Puzzle Championships made by Zoltan Horvath. Another one will feature in this weekend's 24 Hour Puzzle Championhip made by Prasanna Seshadri. These puzzles both need all 12 pentominos to be used, which is something I tend to steer clear of. I think the highest I ever went to was 11. I'd probably could make puzzles of size 13x13 or 14x14, which use all pentominos. But then it still wouldn't be a rule that you'd have to.

Rules for Pentopia

Click to enlarge

Puzzle #137: Crossword

The instruction booklet for the 24 Hour Puzzle Championship is out. My puzzle set will be the second to last set that is solved. Some of my puzzle examples are worth solving in my opinion. I'd especially single out the Battleships Observer, Killer Sudoku and Complementary Hexa Sudoku examples.
This Crossword puzzle is the last puzzle I made that won't appear in the set. I am not very strong at creating logic Word puzzles. I am not totally sure how to approach them. The way I do it, is that I create a grid with words and then check if it solves uniquely in a logical way. I've seen similar layouts for Crossword puzzles like mine before and I always approach them in the same way. That's how I made sure this one solved logically. I'd love to hear from other puzzle makers how they general go about creating logic Word puzzles as that's something I'd like to get the hang of at some point.
This puzzle is challenging. I'd love to hear what people think of it though.

Rules:

Place all but 3 of the given words in the grid, so that they can be read left to right or top to bottom. Every cell will contain one letter.

Example

Puzzle

Click to enlarge

Puzzle #136: Paint-by-Frame

A lot of puzzling done last weekend. Two hours at Logic master India with Fillomino Fillia 2 and four time ninety minute at the Halas League tournament. It was overall an average performance by me.
Fillomino Fillia got mostly stunted by me ignoring a single outside clue on the Skyscraper Fillomino. I also forgot to enter 2 answer keys, but that seems to happen more often lately. I need to get better organised with my puzzle sheets.
Halas League Tournament went pretty well. The worst for me was the classic/classic variant sudoku part, which was to be expected. It also had my only answer key typo, that i didn't correct. The less familiar variants went a lot better, although I probably shouldn't have attempted the Sudoku Ball last. The puzzle parts went pretty well. I hadn't looked at the point distribution for the first round and started the Sudokuros too late and missed out on some of the higher value puzzles that way. On the second part I got a bit unlucky on the highest value Sum Between/Doppelblock with a small calculation error and thus finishing a few seconds late. Overall the puzzle tests were maybe a bit Latin Square heavy for me, especially the highest valued puzzle types.

Now to the actual puzzle. I also made it for my 24 Hour Puzzle Championship set. This one came out too hard as well. I actual had testers wondering if the puzzle even had a solution. This puzzle type was my favourite new genre from the last WPC. I thought the logic works nicely. I wanted to use some different tricks than my first puzzle, which I made as practise for the WPC. But clearly in doing that, the puzzle became more challenging. I still think it worked out nicely and hope you enjoy it.

Rules:
Paint some cells black. Numbers on the outside indicate the amount of cells that are framed by the other colour in that row or column. Framed cells do not need to be consecutive.

Example

 

Puzzle