This post is a bit late. I never really got around to posting these puzzles. There's some nice puzzle in the set, so I figured I'd still share all of them.
I focussed my writing mostly on Rounds 7 and 20. They contained the most types I hadn't seen before. I also played around a bit with round 13. I think I got the most out of writing puzzles for round 7 as I could actually keep up pretty well with Ken Endo, finishing in second place only slightly behind.
Puzzles can be found below.
5.4 Star Battle Builder
I tried writing one of these puzzles, as I was worried this was going to be a tricky puzzle. I was right and it cause me a lot of trouble at the championship. I tried to design it around the letters WCPN, but had to make a few slight changes to get it unique.
Rules:
Fill some cells with stars so that each row, column, and bold region contains the indicated number of stars. Stars cannot be placed in adjacent cells that share an edge or corner.
Also, some region boundaries are missing, but all given borders must separate cells in different regions.
Note: To get full points, all borders must be seen on the solution. (Answer check in penpa puzzle triggers when both stars and borders are drawn)
5.5 Star Battle Double
I'd never written a puzzle like this. I had to adjust the layout slightly as my original layout kept leading to no solution. I wanted to put certain things in and the layout wouldn't let me.
Rules:
Fill some cells with stars so that each row, column, and bold region contains three stars. Stars cannot be placed in adjacent cells that share an edge or corner.
Also, there are some shaded cells in the grid and those cells either contain two stars or none. (In a gray cell with two stars, none of the adjacent cells sharing an edge or corner can have any stars.
7.1-2 Akari (Myopia)
Rules:
Add a light bulb to some of the white cells so that each white cell is lit up. Each light bulb illuminates the cell it is in, as well as any horizontally and vertically adjacent cells, stopping at any black cells. No bulb can illuminate another bulb.
Also, the arrow clues indicate all the directions (up, down, left, and right) where the nearest light bulbs are located when looking from that cell. Arrow clues block the light bulbs, but do not block any other arrow clues. No light bulb can be placed in a cell with an arrow.
7.3-4 Statue Park (Myopia)
The opening of this puzzle is pretty tricky. I found some interesting interactions, but they were actually much deeper than I had origionally realised. Once you get past it, the puzzle starts to flow a lot smoother.
Rules:
A bank of shapes is given with the grid. Place each of the shapes exactly once into the grid, with rotations and reflections allowed. No two shapes can overlap or be orthogonally adjacent, and all of the space not occupied by shapes must be connected.
Also, the arrow clues indicate all the directions (up, down, left, and right) where the nearest shapes are located when looking from that cell. No shape can be placed in a cell with an arrow.
This puzzle uses a full set of pentominoes as the shape bank.
7.5-6 Battleships Myopia
Rules:
Locate the indicated fleet in the grid. Each segment of a ship occupies a single cell. Ships can be rotated. Different ships cannot be placed in adjacent cells that share an edge or corner. The numbers on the right and bottom edges of the grid reveal the number of ship segments in that row or column.
Also, the arrow clues indicate all the directions (up, down, left, and right) where the nearest ship segments are located when looking from that cell. No ship segment can be placed in a cell with an arrow.
This puzzle uses a standard 10 ship fleet (1 ship of size 4, 2 ships of size 3, 3 ships of size 2 and 4 ships of size 1)
7.7-8 Wittgenstein Briquet (Myopia)
Rules:
Locate some briquets in the grid having size 1×3. No two briquets can overlap, and all of the space (including arrow clue cells) not occupied by briquets must be connected.
Also, the arrow clues indicate all the directions (up, down, left, and right) where the nearest briquets are located when looking from that cell. No briquet can be placed in a cell with an arrow.
7.9-10 Minedoku (Myopia)
Rules:
Place a mine into some of the empty cells so that each row, column, and bold region contains exactly indicated number of mines.
Also, the arrow clues indicate all the directions (up, down, left, and right) where the nearest mines are located when looking from that cell. No mine can be placed in a cell with an arrow.
11.6 Aqre (Symmetry)
I liked the layout with the 5 plusses and tried to make it work. It's a bit tricky at times as Aqre can lead to interactions that are hard to foresee.
Rules:
Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one connected group. Regions with numbers must contain the indicated count of shaded cells, and it is allowed to shade over the numbered cells. There may not exist a run of four or more consecutive shaded or unshaded cells horizontally or vertically anywhere in the grid.
Also, some regions have a circle in their center. In these regions, the shaded cells must have 180° rotational symmetry around the circle in the region. There is no restriction on regions without a circle.
13 Islands of Insight
The Islands of Insights round was a different round than normal. The rules of each puzzle weren't known in advance, but there were a number of rules given that could exist in every puzzle. I tried to play around with a number of different rulesets. I didn't do that well in this round as I couldn't figure out how one restriction worked till the end of the round. I also failed to solve one puzzle completely as I couldn't figure out the solution.
Rules:
- Black Circles are shaded. White circles are unshaded
- Shaded areas are all size 6
- The two displayed patterns may not appear anywhere in the grid. Rotations and reflections are considered the same shape.
- Cells containing numbers must always remain unshaded. Numbers indicate the total number of unshaded cells that can be seen in a straight line vertically and horizontally from the numbered cell, including the cell itself.
- All unshaded cells in the grid must be orthogonally connected.
- The two displayed patterns may not appear anywhere in the grid. Rotations and reflections are considered the same shape.
Cells containing numbers must always remain unshaded. Numbers indicate the total number of unshaded cells that can be seen in a straight line vertically and horizontally from the numbered cell, including the cell itself.
Cells containing mirror symmetry symbols must remain unshaded. There are four kinds of mirror symmetry symbols: horizontal, vertical, and both diagonals. An unshaded region containing a symmetry symbol must be mirror-symmetric, with the axis of symmetry passing through the symbol and matching its orientation. Only the shape of the region needs to be symmetric (the positions of symbols such as numbers and letters are ignored when determining symmetry). If a region contains multiple symmetry symbols, it must exhibit a symmetry for each of them.
All shaded cells must be orthogonally connected.
The two displayed patterns must not appear anywhere in the grid. Rotations and reflections are considered the same shape.
Rules:
Cells containing letters must always remain unshaded. If two or more letters are the same, they must lie in the same unshaded region. If two letters are different they must lie in different unshaded regions.
Shaded areas are all size 3.
The displayed pattern must not appear anywhere in the grid. Rotations and reflections are considered the same shape.
20.1-2 Pentominous + Star Battle
Rules:
Fill some cells with stars so that each row and bold region contains the indicated number of stars. Stars cannot be placed in adjacent cells that share an edge or corner. Then divide the rest of the grid into regions each containing 5 cells. Regions with the same shape (including rotations/reflections) cannot share an edge. A cell with a letter in it must be part of the pentomino shape normally associated with that letter.
20.3-4 Pentominous + Spiral Galaxies
The Spiral Galaxies clues in this variant always lead to some tricky interactions. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Rules:
Divide the grid into pentominoes (five-cell regions) so that no two pentominoes of the same shape (including rotations/reflections) share an edge. A cell with a letter in it must be part of the pentomino shape normally associated with that letter.
Additionally, some circle clues are given in the grid which must be at the center of symmetry for a rotationally-symmetric pentomino shape.
This puzzle uses a standard 10 ship fleet (1 ship of size 4, 2 ships of size 3, 3 ships of size 2 and 4 ships of size 1).
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