16th 24-Hour Puzzle Championship

The 16th 24-Hour Puzzle Championship was held in Budapest this weekend. As always the championship featured 14 puzzle sets to be solved over 24 hours, with each round lasting 100 minutes, with only 10 or 20 minute breaks in between. Neil Zussman was this year's winner with a slim 10 point lead over Robert Vollmert in second place and a 23 point lead over Michael Mosshammer in third place. Full results can be found here.

All puzzles of this championship (except round 11) can be found here. If you need an example of any of the puzzles, you can find the instruction booklets here.

I provided a set again this year. It was the 8th set to be solved between 11pm and 12:40am. The set contained 24 puzzles. It featured 12 genres, with one puzzle being a standard and one puzzle being a variant. I was originally going to include only 6 genres and two standard puzzles and two variants. I found it hard to decide on the genres to provide enough variation. I tried to keep all variations different per genre, to add to the variation in the round. I think it ended up being a good mix.
Robert Vollmert was the top scorer of the round with 810 points.

Puzzles can be found below

14th 24 Hour Puzzle Championship

This year I wrote a set of puzzles together with Hns Eendebak. I was a bit tight on time with a holiday and other championships that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to write everything in time. I still ran a bit late getting everything together but it was in time for the championship.
This year's championship was won by Peter Hudak. Nikola Zivanovic and Zoltan Horvath finished second and third.
There were 30 competitors total in this year's championship, of which 29 did our set. The set was a bit on the long side this year with the Michael Mosshammer from Austria being the top scorer with 695 points. It would have been better if the top scorer had about 100-150 points more. The set contained 24 puzzles in total, so I should have probably cut 2 puzzles in the end.
In this post I will be adding all the puzzles I wrote. You can find the complete set and all other sets here. If you need to see the instruction booklets for any of the set you can find them in this forum post.

Puzzles can be found below.

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 #67: Slitherlink

And this is the last puzzle that featured in my set of the 24 Hour Puzzle Championship. Somehow I don't see many people being surprised that it is a Slitherlink puzzles. This has always been one of my favourite genres. It just seems to work well with how I like to solve and design puzzles. I decided to make this one on the easier side. A lot of familiar patterns and short term inner loop deductions. It was one of the lower scoring puzzles in the test and meant as a nice opening puzzle to the test.

Rules for Slitherlink

Puzzle #66: Liar Loop

So, this genre was developed while making this set. I was originally planning on putting in a Maxi Loop puzzle. But that ended up turning into a new genre. I was really happy with how the genre and the puzzle turned out. The test solving got positive feedback as well, so I figured I'd have a good new type. I first thought of keeping the genre only to the 24 hour puzzle championship, but as I had fun designing them I decided to just make one for the forum too. That way someone who followed my blog got a little advantage in the championship. That might be a tad unfair, but following my blog should be worth something.
This puzzle can also be used to get some practise in with Liar Loop solving. This will be handy for the puzzle that I will be releasing for Sinterklaas on monday. It's my present to you. It was originally planned as puzzle 50, but I didn't come close to acchieving that in the amount of time I had.

Rules for Liar Loop

Puzzle #65: Penta Sum

This is one of those standard genres for people who solve the Dutch magazine Breinbrekers. I always like them. And as it added come arithmetic to the puzzle set. I had never actually designed any before. I wanted to make it so there were no equal adjacent digits in the grid, in which I succeeded. Obviously I went for a sum of 24 for this puzzle. I though the grid layout made the place to start obvious, but I don't know you all will agree.

Penta Sum

Divide the grid into the 12 pentominos. The 5 digits in the pentomino must add up to 24. (The example uses tetrominos and the sum is 10.

Puzzle #64: Island

I decided to include this genre because the solving techniques are different from any genre. I figured this would lead to a more varied solving experience. I think many people still have trouble with the genre though, from what I heard back about this puzzle. This is probably because the solving works different than most genres. So there isn't too much to carry on from having done similar puzzle types. What you have to remember mostly, is that you have to create a single connected area. For this you have to take two things in mind. The first is the minimal distance between different clues to see how they can connect. The second is the maximum size of isolated areas can be placed. This puzzle uses the second technique more than my other puzzles so far.

Rules for Island

Puzzle #63: Sudoku

I somehow didn't think a set would be complete without a Sudoku. I first thought of putting in a variant, but I was too lazy to actually make a Sudoku. I still had this puzzle lying around, which is the only successful 20 clue Sudoku I have ever made. I thought it was relatively tricky, but it doesn't give so many places to start. So I figured people would quickly start looking at where the openings were.

Rules for Sudoku

Puzzle #62: Password Path

This puzzle type I've always liked. I hadn't really seen many of them in a while, so I thought it would be nice to put one in. I found it funny to then see that this puzzle type popped up in the WPC too as the instruction booklet was released after I had made this set.
I made a few of these puzzles and also had one that use 24HPC as the password, but that turned out a bit harder than I wanted. I didn't want this one to be too hard. It is one of the lower scoring puzzles in the test. I don't expect this puzzle to have cause many problems while solving.

Password Path

Draw a path that runs from the left top corner to the right bottom corner through all cells once without touching or crossing itself. The path can run horizontally, vertically and the diagonally. The path will run through the letters in the password in order, in the following way P-A-T-H-P-..etc. (B-R-A-M-B-.... etc. in the example).

Puzzle #61: Ripple Effect

As I've had a lot of fun designing Ripple Effect puzzles in the last months, I couldn't resist putting one in. I know my puzzles are generally harder than most, so I gave this puzzle the most points. There was a Ripple Effect puzzle distributed at the WPC which was seemingly harder than mine, but it was designed in a different way than I do.
I have previously said I wasn't sure how to design puzzles with given numbers. Mostly my puzzles with given numbers will just have them to make the end of the path unique. This one is different though. I placed these numbers in the start of the puzzle and then start designing the cages so that these numbers would instigate much of the path. I think it worked out really nicely and was worth all the points in my opinion.

Rules for Ripple Effect

Puzzle #60: Line of Sight

I still really love this genre. They are just fun to design and I think they are fun to solve. So I figured to really represent my taste in puzzles, this would be a good puzzle type to put in. I tried to make this one flow from the opening. I'm not sure how people found it in competition. It might be a bit hard to get into if you've never done them before. This ended up being the highest scoring loop puzzle.

On an unrelated note, I haven't actually made any puzzles since coming home from Eger. I'm not sure when I'll get started again but I'm a bit inspirationless at the moment. I hope to have some puzzles ready after this 24 hour puzzle championship run down though.

Rules for Line of Sight

Puzzle #59: Penta Maze

I'd had this idea a while back already. I wanted to do something with mazes to turn non-unique mazes into unique mazes by placing shapes in them. I thought this was the easiest way. I found it somewhat funny to see the idea pop up in reverse in this year's USPC. This idea seemed like something different that would fit in well in a varied set.
I thought the puzzle worked out nice, but I haven't really heard any comments on people who tried to solve them. The starting logic is somewhat tricky, but I think the most obvious thing to start with.

Rules for Penta Maze

Puzzle #58: Latin Pointers

So I have already professed my love of Naoki's genres already, so I figured I should put something new from him in this set as well. I came across these puzzles a little while before designing this set and absolutely loved the idea. I've always liked Pointers (named Japanese Arrows at the WPC) puzzles, even though I always find them very challenging. This genre combined the logic with Latin Squares. Therefore the name, Latin Pointers. Naoki named the genre mount, but that didn't really sound right to me.
Neither puzzle is very hard once you get the logic involved. I think this type helped the set become more diverse logicwise.

Rules for Latin Pointers

In both puzzles place the digits 0-3 once in every row and column.

Puzzle #57: Dice

This is a puzzle type I've always liked. There isn't too much variation in it, but they're always just fun to solve. It's just the kind of logic you have to use that makes them fun to me. As the logic is different to most genres I figure it is always a good type to throw into a puzzle mix. I tried to add them to my puzzle test, but I think I ended up making the wrong choice in taking them out there. I think I should have taken the Outside Sudoku/Skyscraper set out in hindsight.
I have a feeling the minimal number of clues needed for a 4 dice set with 24 different letters, is 13 words. I have no way to prove this, I just always make the puzzle unique with the 13th word. I have a feeling someone with programming skills could verify this. It's one of those questions that pop up in my head once in a while. Johan de Ruiter already once confirmed my question about the existence of unique 4 by 4 kakuros.
This puzzle isn't too hard. The path through it runs very smoothly, which is why I didn't have it score too many points in the set.

On an unrelated note, I will be posting the Slitherlink Pattern Guide I had mentioned in Puzzle #51 later today.

Dice

You are given a set of 4 dice with letters on them instead of numbers. Each side has 1 letter on it. The given words can be rolled with this set of dice. Determine the orientation of the 4 dice.
The given example uses 3 dice.

Puzzle #56: Yajilin

As might be expected, I also put in a few Loop based puzzles as those are my favourites.As my small Yajilin puzzles have all gotten a lot of positive feedback, I thought it would be good to put one in the set as well. I was really happy with the way this puzzle worked out. I started as I start all my Yajilin puzzles by defining the squares that will contain clues. Along the way I got to a nice unique puzzle, but hadn't used the 2 corner squares. I couldn't place clues in them, without ruining the logic I had built in. So I decided to keep those as empty clue squares and not let the loop run through them.
I think this puzzle is a little bit harder than the previous 2 10x10 Yajilin puzzles I have posted.

Rules for Yajilin

There's an additional rule, that no black bordered square can be used by the loop.

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.

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.