UKPA Open: Introduction

I wrote a set of puzzles for the UKPA Open 2016 held at Selsdon Park Hotel in Croydon this year. The championship will be held the 27th and 28th of February. The Sudoku tournament will be held on the 27th of February. The Puzzle Championship will be held in two sessions over the 27th and 28th of February. The championship is open to foreign competitors.

While writing this set, I wrote two puzzles per type and selected one to be included in the final set. I will be releasing all puzzles that were not included in the set as preparation. Most of these puzzles will be a bit harder than the actual puzzles in the set, but I figure any example is better than nothing. The puzzles will be posted from Monday through Thursday for the next four weeks.

The set I wrote was based around the numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5. It started when I was playing around with different types to include in the set. I was thinking of including Norinori, which uses dominos, as I'd never written one. Then I thought Trio Cut, which uses triominos, might be fun too. Then I thought there are also similar types that use tetrominos and pentominos too.
So I tried to find more types that are somewhat similar that use the same polyominos. Three groups I had quickly put together. The number place category was a bit harder. I couldn't really remember any types that use triominos or tetrominos to place symbols in. So I changed that group a little to types that use 1~2, 1~3, 1~4 and 1~5 instead as that was easier to establish.

I hope these puzzles are useful and the set enjoyable.

The eventual groups and types that were used are as follows.

Room Placement:

- Norinori
- Trio Cut
- Tetromino Areas
- Pentomino In A Box

These are all types that place polyominos by using rooms.

Split Wall:

- Domino Nurikabe
- Triomino Tapa
- LITS
- Filled Loop

These are all types where you create a wall (or loop) that needs to be split into polyominos.

Division:

- Dominos
- Sandwich
- L-Division
- Pentominous

These are all types where the grid has to be divided into polyominos of the same size.

Number Placement:

- Sum Sweeper
- Neighbours
- Magic Snail
- Capsules

These types use an increasing set of numbers.