Puzzle #55: Penta Pair and Penta Line

I'm posting 2 puzzles today. This is partly because I feel that posting only the Penta Pair puzzle would be a bit silly. They are both Pentomino puzzles. I had a few puzzle ideas ready for a test I was thinking of making, but that never really got off the ground. I might try that again next year as the theme is great. I put in some of the ideas in this test as I thought they were fun and it provided a few shape based puzzles.
The Penta Pair puzzle is a somewhat silly variant on the Pentomino Puddles puzzles. I have never been a fan of Pentomino Puddles puzzles, but I did like this twist on it though. I figured it would be a quick easy points, which you could get if you needed a short break or had a bit of time left at the end. I made a bunch of these puzzles and I think this was a really nice looking shape.
The Penta Line puzzle is just a simple pentomino grid variant. I hadn´t really ever seen the puzzles like this when I made it but have come across a few of them since I made it. This idea was the first draft for my LMI test, but I ended up going with a more traditional Pentomino puzzle type. I figured I could used it for this one now. I rated this puzzle a bit higher as the logic felt trickier to me than other puzzles.

Penta Pair

Determine which 2 pentomino pieces can´t both be placed in the grid without overlapping. Rotating and reflecting is allowed.
I´ve added an example that uses tetrominos.

Penta Line

Place all 12 pentominos in the grid. Rotating and reflecting is allowed. The pieces aren´t allowed to touch eachother, not even diagonally. Certain parts have already been placed.
I´ve added an example with tetrominos.

Puzzle #54: Sum Skyscrapers

Of course I needed to add some Latin square based puzzles. I also tried to fit in some arythmetic based puzzles in there. Sum Skyscrapers have always been my favourite variant, so it seemed like a logical addition.
The first puzzle I tried to make the clues on each side to add to 24, except how much I tried I couldn't get it right. This was the nicest result that came out of the attempts.
The second puzzle is a harder one. I was really happy with how this one worked out.

Rules for Skyscraper

In this variant the numbers on the outside indicate the sum of the visible digits.

Puzzle #53: Word Nurikabe

I also wanted to put in some puzzles with letters. But I generally have a lot of trouble designing puzzles with words. I tried putting in some word search and scrabble like puzzles, but they just didn't come out in any pleasing way. So i thought of using words in other genres I could work with. Nurikabe ended up being a nice choice. The trick of course was to make sure that the letters couldn't be all directly assigned to a word, because then the number of the island would be instantly known and it wouldn't be any different than a normal Nurikabe.
The design ended up really nice, with the word choice being related to the event and the puzzle.

Rules for Nurikabe

In this puzzle the number clues are replaced by letters and the islands by words. The words that have to be placed are listed on the side. Each word has one letter given. The words have to be placed so that they can be read by moving horizontally and vertically along the squares. check the example below in case something isn't clear.

Rules: Nurikabe

This genre is developed by Nikoli.

Determine for each cell if it's part of the stream or an island. Each number is part of a single island of horizontally and vertically connected cells, which size is equal to that number. Islands can't touch eachother horizontally or vertically. The cells not part of an island form the stream. The stream is a single connected area, which doesn't cover any 2x2 areas anywhere.

Puzzle #52: Heyawake

I've realised I have 19 puzzles all ready for people to solve. I figured I might as well start posting them here. I made a puzzle set for the 24 Hour Puzzle Championship, which was held on monday. Now it's over I figure I can start sharing them with everyone. Therefor I'm going to post these puzzles here. This way I can also tell a bit about them, instead of you all just getting the booklet. There will be a few new ideas by me I used in the test and a few ideas I got from other people that aren't actually seen very much online.

Rules for Heyawake

I'm going to open this with a standard Heyawake puzzle. I needed a few more familiar types in the test and this one seemed like a good one to incorporate a nice 24 theme in. I didn't want it to be hard, so I chose some more standard cage shapes to go with the numbers. The 3 by 3 and 5 by 2 cages for the 4s seem to be very frequent in puzzles. I designed the puzzle with those at the start and tried to model the rest of the cages around them. This one is easier than the others I have posted so far. It's one of the lower scoring puzzles in the test, although for experienced Heyawake solvers it was probably a quick pick up.

Puzzle #51: Slitherlink

After the WSC and WPC my puzzle energy has been really drained. I don't think I'll post regularly for a while. This puzzle is the only puzzle I wrote during the whole championship week. It is meant as a Slitherlink Pattern Tutorial. I wrote is as a response to my teammates asking if there were patterns they didn't know. So I showed a few I like to use in my puzzles. Then I decided to just create a puzzle around all of the ones I had shown. I added one or 2 more little tricks I also like to put in. It's not a complete package of tricks for my puzzles. I have put some others in puzzles too. But figuring out all patterns in this one should get you along a fair bit in my Slitherlink puzzles.

Rules for Slitherlink

Puzzle #50: Ripple Effect

Returned from the World Sudoku and World Puzzle Championships, seemingly in one piece. A few bruises and scrapes over my body is all I have left over from it. Finished nicely in 5th place after the 2 days of puzzling, which came as a surprise to me. I was expecting to have to battle really hard for a place in the top 10, but always remained comfortably in 4th or 5th place through the 2 days. Maybe on location competitions just suit me better than online competitions. Or maybe it's just that I am far more focussed sitting on a desk in relative silence opposed to solving online competitions in a lazy chair with the tv in the background. A bit too bad on my play off performance. A lousy No Four in a Row solve, a dumb Battleships solve and a stray circle in my Pointing at the Crowd puzzle, made me just miss out making the 7 person cut. I'm happy with my overall performance none-the-less.

Now back to actual puzzles. I know some people might have expected something special for number 50. I have been working on two ideas which were far harder than I had imagined to complete. I'm not even sure if one of them will ever work out, but it's nice to try challenging myself. As I couldn't complete either of them and I hadn't posted anything in over a week, I figured I should at least post something.
I've had a few of my puzzles published in Akil Oyunlari. It contains four Turning Fences and two Ripple Effect puzzles by my hand. Some of the Ripple Effect puzzles I had submitted were considered too hard for the magazine. I had somewhat expected they might be, but then again it said I could make some puzzles as hard as I wanted. I really loved the design of those puzzles, so I'm posting them here now. These two Ripple Effect puzzles have some very noticable designs. The first has a cute four by four square in the middle, which I've used in other puzzles before. The second has a nice stairs pattern in the right bottom corner. I hope you enjoy them.

Rules for Ripple Effect

Puzzle #49: Slitherlink; Liars

I'm not sure how much I will post in the next week or so. I will be flying out to Hungary on Sunday to participate in the World Sudoku Championships and World Puzzle Championships.

For this puzzle, the opening is trickier than my previous Liar Slitherlink puzzle.

Rules for Slitherlink

As an additional rule, exactly one clue in every row and column is incorrect.

Puzzle #48: Yajilin

Rules for Yajilin

My small Yajilin puzzles seem to be very much appreciated. So here's another one. Like the other one it's not too hard and it's not too easy. So hope you enjoy it.

Puzzle #47: Tapa; Hungarian

Last Tapa variant was considered an easy puzzle, but I don't think this one will be seen as such. This type I like a lot, but constructing them has caused me a lot of trouble. It's far harder to not run into impossibilities Tapa-wise as you have a set number of cells in each row and column. Normally the problem is uniqueness, here it is just having the possibility of a solution and then still having to worry about uniqueness. This one worked out well though. This variant will also appear at the WPC, which isn't overly surprising as the idea came from one of the constructers for the WPC.

Rules for Tapa

In this variant you are to place the digits 1-6 instead of colouring squares. The digits will appear once in every row and column. The clues indicate the sum of the connected sections of digits around it. Different sums are seperated by at least one empty square. As in normal Tapa, the digits don't form a 2x2 square anywhere.

Puzzle #46: Line of Sight

Rules for Line of Sight

Not much to say about this design. It look nice and solves nice. It's a bit tricky, but not overly so. Just enjoy.

Puzzle #45: Pentopia

Rules for Pentopia

The booklet for the World Puzzle Championships came out today. As this genre will feature at the championship I'm posting another one. The puzzle in the championship is probably a bit bigger than mine as it will have all pentomino pieces in it (as the rules seem to indicate). Even though 12 by 12 grids are the standard size for pentomino puzzles, they don't work very well for this genre to fit all 12 in as you eliminate a lot of space with the clue type. Also thought it was somewhat funny that the example was the same one I made for my LMI-test.

Puzzle #44: Liar Loop

Rules for Liar Loop

This genre idea developed when playing around with Maxi Loop puzzles and discovering how areas sometimes have very little options for the loop to run through and disallowing a certain value would also force the loop a certain way. This eventually led to the attempt to make puzzles with only disallowed values. And a new genre is born.
The puzzle is a bit tricky, but it's partly caused because the way of thinking is different than normal.

Rules: Liar Loop

This genre was developed by myself.

Draw a closed loop through all squares by running horizontally and vertically. The loop doesn't touch or cross itself. The numbers in a boldly marked area indicate that the loop never runs through this many cells consecutively. Whenever it passes through the area it always runs through either more or less cells than the given number.

Puzzle #43: Twin Killer Sudoku

I've always liked Twin Killer Sudokus. Part of the reason for that might be because the puzzles of this type I see are usually made by Richard Stolk, who always manages to do beautiful and interesting things with Sudokus.  I prefer them if they don't have both grids completely covered with cages as you can see the design in those puzzles a bit better than in others.
For this puzzle I think it should be clear what the cages should read. I like how it worked out, but I guess as with most of my sudokus they are on the harder side.

Rules for Sudoku

Normal Sudoku rules. Additionally the numbers in the dotted cages represent the sum of the digits in that cage. No digit is repeated within a cage. Both grids have the same solution.

Puzzle #42: Tapa; Islands

When trying to design these I started to noticed how a whole bunch of clue options become obsolete as they would break the rules. I have a feeling that because of this (almost) all Tapa Island puzzles can be turned into a cryptic variant without messing up uniqueness.

Rules for Tapa

The clues work as normal Tapa with the addition that each clue cell is part of an island of horizontally and vertically connected empty cells. At least one of the clue numbers indicates the size of the island this cell belongs to. No two islands can touch eachother horizontally or vertically and no island contains more than one clue cell.

Puzzle #41: Country Road/Land and Sea

I liked the first one I made of these, so figured I'd give this combo another try. I think this one is a bit trickier than the previous one, but that could also be caused by the fact that this one took a lot more effort to get to work out in a way that I liked.
I haven't been able to combine Land and Sea with any other genre satisfactorily. I like it here because it replaces a clue type completely while in others it just comes over as merely an addition.

Rules for Country Road

Rules for Land and Sea

This one solves as a normal Country Road puzzle, with the addition that the loop can't run through more than 2 white squares consecutively.

[Edit: Fixed a uniqueness issue. Somewhat major, but quite easily fixed luckily]

Puzzle #40: Maxi Loop

Rules for Maxi Loop
People seemed to like this genre from the first puzzle. So I've toyed around with it again. The finish of this puzzle is a bit trickier that the previous one. The next ones I might try to make bigger or mix up the sizes a bit. All areas being the same size does look nicer, but maybe also limits the difficulty. I'll find out when I try it out.

Puzzle #39: Heyawake

Rules for Heyawake

After a busy weekend, I'm back with a puzzle. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up posting a puzzle every day, but I kept at it for as long as I could.
I think I'm getting a bit better with creating Heyawake puzzles. This is still not the easiest Heyawake, but I think it has more standard deductions in them than my last one. There's a bit more number work in this one. Hope you enjoy it.

Puzzle #38: Yajilin

Rules for Yajilin

When I make larger puzzles, I seem to find new things to put in. But the only new things I seem to be able to find on larger scale are hard steps I wouldn't have room for on a small scale. I think that's why I'm not much a fan of large Slitherlink puzzles as you can't really put anything in them that doesn't fit on a smaller scale. As my previous Castle Wall puzzle, this one is also a tough one to crack.
I did something silly with the clue placement, which I didn't realise at first. I wasn't 100% sure how to handle the corners, so I basically made it clear at the start what to do with them.

Puzzle #37: Ripple Effect

Rules for Ripple Effect

I am still finding enough interesting patterns to make these puzzles without any given clues. I managed to raise this one to a 7 cell area. That would probably be easier if I made them larger. omehow I'm not sure if people would look forward to larger Ripple Effect puzzles that have no clues.

Puzzle #36: Island

Rules for Island

I've been busy the last few days and haven't had time to really construct something for this blog. Here's another Island puzzle. I haven't had any comments really on the type. I still enjoy constructing them, so they'll most like keep appearing. For this pattern the number 5 seemed a good number to orient the design around.

Puzzle #35: Slitherlink; No Touch

These shifted square clue patterns I always like. I've employed it in many puzzle types. It doesn't work for everything as it always leaves a lot of room. With this type it works really well, as the clues give extra information for many of the unclued squares. I think this one worked out well, although the left bottom is tricky.

Rules for Slitherlink

As an extra rule, none of the given clues share a border with a square that has the same value. This only goes for the given clues, not the remaining squares.

Puzzle #34: Frameless Sudoku

This is so far the only genre I have made, that have also been made by other people. I like to see them from other people. They will also have a different feel from when you made them yourself. Also more fun if you don't know exactly how the puzzle is set up.
It's not that uncommon for puzzle types that people like only to made by its developer though. If you only look at Naoki Inaba's website and then try to find the puzzle ideas he thought of somewhere else. Very few of those are found anywhere else.
This puzzle I wanted to see if I could make all triplets of given sums to be consecutive. It worked out nicely even though the opening is a bit tricky to figure out.

Rules for Sudoku

The numbers on the outside indicate the sum of the first digits encountered in that row or column from that side. The amount of digits can differ from sum to sum and can be only one digit.

Puzzle #33: Maxi Loop

I make a lot of loop puzzles. Loop puzzles just come more naturally to me. This was actually an idea I had been working with before, till I also found it on Naoki's website. There's 2 more ideas I saw there that I had actually tried to work with myself. Both ideas I couldn't really get to work properly, but Naoki proved me wrong and his puzzles in those genres are actually very nice. So I might give them another go some time.
This puzzle isn't as challenging as the last one. So you can relax a bit more this with one.

Rules: Maxi Loop

This genre was developed by Naoki Inaba.

Draw a closed loop through all cells by connecting the centers horizontally and vertically. The loop can't cross or touch itself. The numbers in the boldly marked area indicate the highest amount of cells that the loop goes through consecutively in that area.

Puzzle #32: Castle Wall

Rules for Castle Wall

I don't generally makes puzzles larger than the standard 10 by 10 grids. I like to put tricky steps in puzzles and in larger puzzle they can get lost for people. Castle Wall has more widespread constraints and in a larger grid you can do things that wouldn't fit in a smaller grid. This is a tricky puzzle, which uses two techniques a lot. I haven't done enough Castle Wall puzzles to see how often they appear in other puzzles.
If people didn't know yet, clicking the image gives you the image in the original size. The size discrepancy is a bit bigger in this puzzle.

Double Trouble #5: Slitherlink and Turning Fences

This combination of puzzles took the longest to get to work out of all Double Troubles so far. I couldn't get the end to work for most my tries. Maybe it didn't help that I was stubborn in wanting to use a preset layout. It's easier if I just place clues where they are needed.
These Turning Fences I haven't really seen many of. The only time that really comes to mind is a WPC. I'm thinking it was in Borovets, but not too sure. I just came to use it again recently and I figured it should be possible to make them looking like normal Slitherlink, so figured it might also be possible for one to actually be a Slitherlink.

Rules for Slitherlink

Rules for Turning Fences

So firstly it can be solved as a Slitherlink puzzle. this puzzle has its easy and hard parts.It still seems pretty typical for the style and difficulty I like to make them.
Secondly it can be solved as a Turning Fences puzzle. This one is about the same difficulty as the Slitherlink puzzle but as its the first on this blog it might feel harder.

Rules: Turning Fences

Draw a closed loop by connecting dots horizontally and vertically. The numbers in the grid indicate the amount of turns taken on the four dots around it.

Puzzle #31: Line of Sight

Rules for Line of Sight

I have this tendency to go overboard with difficulty when trying out genres I have never designed before. It helps me to discover what is possible under the rules. This puzzle is one of those puzzles. It's a really tough puzzle, but I like it. You can get throught it logically, but it might take a while. The high difficulty is mainly caused by the fact the path is very narrow and requires you to take multiple clues into account at a time.

Puzzle #30: Double Back

Rules for Double Back 

I tried to make this one with larger areas. I think it worked out well. It's hardest in the midle of the solve.

Puzzle #29: Pentopia

Rules for Pentopia

Somehow I almost always seem to end up with 12 clues in a 12x12 grid with these puzzles. I don't really know why that is. I'm guessing it is because too many clues makes the grid too packed.

Puzzle #28: Killer Sudoku

I've always liked Killer Sudokus. I enjoy solving the harder ones as well, which really need pencilmark eliminations if you want to find a nice logical way.
Competitionwise I usualy don't really find Killer Sudokus very interesting though. It's far too easy to turn out a quick Killer Sudoku. It's possible though to make the human element shine through a bit more. Those are the kinds of Killer Sudokus I find the most suitable for championships. I think that's why the Killer Sudoku in the latest United States Sudoku Championship was so much appreciated.
I think I managed to do the same with this Killer Sudoku. I made it a little while back for my girlfriend. The cages are to spell out an A four times. I am really happy with this puzzle.

Rules for Sudoku

Instead of given numbers, you now have a few dashed cages. The number in the cage indicates the sum of the digits in the cage, Digits can't be repeated in any dashed cage.

Puzzle #27: Corral

Rules for Corral

I am starting to like Corral more and more. The logic seems to really suit my design style. I'm happy how this puzzle turned out.

Puzzle #26: Yajilin

Rules for Yajilin

I've always enjoyed Yajilin puzzles. I first saw them under a different name in Breinbrekers. It's never realy been a genre I am fast at with solving, but enjoy none the less. Constructing these always seems trickier than the end result. I don't think this one is too hard. But I've said that before and got told off on it, so I'll be careful with the notion this time.

Rules: Yajilin

This genre was developed by Nikoli.

Colour some cells so that you can draw a closed loop through all remaining white cells. The numbers in the grid tell you how many coloured cells can be seen in the direction of the arrow. No coloured cells are allowed to share an edge.

Double Trouble #4: Tapa and Pata

So this idea started with an opening that worked very nicely for both puzzle types. So I really wanted it to work out. It took a lot of effort though to get it to fall. The two types block eachother a bit. I've always liked Pata. It's probably my favourite Tapa variation.
On an unrelated note, I've edited Puzzle #21. Due to my natural curiosity and excellent understanding of Japanese (or google translate working well enough to understand what was being said) I found out it wasn't unique.

Rules for Tapa

Firstly it can solved as a regular Tapa puzzle. I think it's a nice puzzle.
Secondly it can be solved as a Pata puzzle. Here the clues indicate the groups of connected white cells that are around the square. Different groups of white cells are seperated by at least one coloured cell. This one worked out nicely too.

Puzzle #25: Castle Wall

Rules for Castle Wall

I like how this genre works. I do have trouble making nice puzzles with it though. A lot of times it just won't turn out unique. When it does it usually isn't a very interesting puzzle. I think this puzzle turned out well though.

Rules: Castle Wall

This genre was developed by Palmer Mebane.

Draw a single closed loop through the grid by connecting the centres of cells. The loop can't go through any cells with a bold black border. If such a cell is coloured black, it will be outside the loop; if such a cell is coloured white, it will be inside the loop. Some cells will have numbers and arrows. A number with a horizontal arrow indicates the total length of horizontal line segments in the direction of the arrow. A number with a vertical arrow indicates the total length of vertical line segments in the direction of the arrow.

Puzzle #24: Slitherlink; Liars

Many people will have seen this variant on Mellowmellon's blog. This was not the first place I encountered these puzzles though. Back in 2006 they appeared on the Dutch Puzzle Championships. We had a short round with 4 of these puzzles. I really liked the idea back then, but hadn't really come back much after that. I found it interesting to see the idea had popped back up afterwards.

Rules for Slitherlink

The clues work as a normal Slitherlink puzzle, except in every row and column exactly one clue is incorrect.

Puzzle #23: Heyawake

Rules for Heyawake

I'm still learning the in and outs of this genre a bit. This puzzle has a tricky opening. I'm trying to now mostly let the cages do the work, which I find more fun in this size. I might try making a larger one, where the numbers do more of the work. Heyawake is one of the few genres I don't mind solving on a larger scale.

Puzzle #22: Worm Sudoku

 This type was the best rated in my LMI Hybrids test, so I figured people might like to see another. They are somewhat tricky to make. Not because they are hard to get unique, but to get both elements of the puzzle types to both remain interesting. You don't want a worms puzzle that is unique or really hard to get the unique bits. You also have to make sure that the resulting cage structures make for good possible deductions.
I think this puzzle worked out well. It is 8 by 8 because 9 by 9 puzzles become so hard they lose some of the fun. That's also why the one in the test was 8 by 8.

Rules for Sudoku

Place the digits 1-8 in every row and column. Also connect the given clues in pairs with paths going horizontally and vertically. Every path has the digits 1-8 exactly once.

Puzzle #21: Line of Sight

 Rules for Line of Sight

I am a fan of loop puzzles. When I saw this one, I thought "that's clever". The names it was under were Sight and Site Line, but I thought Line of Sight had a better ring to it. For the Layout I had several ideas which you can see here. The right top one was preferred by people I asked. The left top one is the original layout. If people prefer it differently, I don't mind drawing them differently.
As for the puzzle, it's not too hard. I figured I'd introduce this genre a bit more gently than I normally do. I have this tendency to make really hard first puzzles as it helps me discover what you can do with a genre.

[Edit] First puzzle was not unique. Fixed the left bottom corner.

Rules: Line of Sight

This genre was developed by Naoki Inaba

Draw a closed loop in the grid by connecting dots horizontally and vertically.  The clues in the grid indicate the length of the straight line segment seen in the direction of the arrow.