Round 6 had puzzles that were all combinations of different types of puzzles. There were some interesting ideas, but I doubt many of these will be seen more often again in future puzzle sets.
There's a few puzzles in here that I'm pretty happy with. The Starwacky puzzle is a nice solve. Snail on Snake worked out pretty well because it didn't need any extra given numbers, except for the head and tail. Galaxies and Tetrominoes is my favourite in the set, because it really forces the two types to work together.
The other puzzles should also be nice to solve.
Showing posts with label Kakuro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kakuro. Show all posts
Saturday, 24 November 2018
Thursday, 21 March 2013
UK Puzzle Championship 2013
Today my puzzles for the UK puzzle championships. The UK Puzzle and Sudoku championships were held last weekend. Tom Collyer won the UK Sudoku championship and Neil Zussman won the UK Puzzle championship. My puzzles were the last individual round of the championship. It featured a relay, with 9 puzzles that have to be solved in order. Each puzzle solution would in some way transfer to the next, so that this puzzle would become solvable. I will be posting all puzzles and relay tags below, but to see how everything works, you can check the instruction booklet for this round here.
The original idea for this round came from the 2003 WPC in Arnhem. I have made a round like this before for another online competition. I used similar relays in that round as well. As that round wasn't done on time, I wasn't sure how many of these relays would work on time. Some relays are good without time, but things like copying the shapes of a Fillomino solution are very annoying in my mind for a speed contest.
The first puzzles I wrote were the Snake and Nurikabe puzzles, as I had used the Snake to Nurikabe relay before and liked it. I wrote a Snake puzzle with few clues, so that I could easily write a puzzle that had these clues inside the grid, which could then be transferred to the side. I then opted writing a Kakuro puzzle as the opening puzzle, as most solvers are familiar with that. With this the first 3 puzzles were all types that most people in the puzzling community have done multiple of. The next part of the design was getting from Nurikabe somehow back to number clues. I then found the combination Yin Yang/Hiroimono, which I thought was a nice transition, with a few less familiar puzzles. I did have to figure out how to properly write Hiroimono puzzles without any given clues as I had never done that before. From here I opted to write a Doppelblock puzzle. It was easiest to write this puzzle without any repeating clues as this would make the relay the smoothest. It was a bit hard to get it right, as some clues are just more conductive in this puzzle type. I was planning on writing a Minesweeper puzzle next, and figured I could easily relay it to any puzzle type. That's why I chose to write a Magnets next, which could transfer to a Battleships puzzle. I wrote a Magnets puzzle with missing clues, which I have written many of. I chose a smaller size as they are generally viewed as hard to many people. I had to make sure the remaining clues were under 20 as that's the max number of ship segments a standard Battleships puzzle has. It worked out perfectly and the Battleships construction was really easy to finish. When I went back, I couldn't get the Minesweeper in a way that the relay to it and from it was nice. That's why I tried a number of other puzzle types. Then I tried Country Road, which caused an odd design experience. I tried to write them normally, except I couldn't get it so it would transfer to the already written Magnets puzzle, so that's why I changed it around. I first marked a bunch of empty squares so that it would transfer properly to the Magnets puzzle, and then reversely engineered the regions so a solvable valid puzzle would exist which has those empty squares in those places. I think the result is nice and I doubt anyone would expect it was designed that way from the solve. I thought 9 puzzles would be enough, even though I had originally planned on making 10 puzzles. I just think some of the relays would take more time than others, so I thought this would make a long enough round for the championship.
The puzzles can be found below.
The original idea for this round came from the 2003 WPC in Arnhem. I have made a round like this before for another online competition. I used similar relays in that round as well. As that round wasn't done on time, I wasn't sure how many of these relays would work on time. Some relays are good without time, but things like copying the shapes of a Fillomino solution are very annoying in my mind for a speed contest.
The first puzzles I wrote were the Snake and Nurikabe puzzles, as I had used the Snake to Nurikabe relay before and liked it. I wrote a Snake puzzle with few clues, so that I could easily write a puzzle that had these clues inside the grid, which could then be transferred to the side. I then opted writing a Kakuro puzzle as the opening puzzle, as most solvers are familiar with that. With this the first 3 puzzles were all types that most people in the puzzling community have done multiple of. The next part of the design was getting from Nurikabe somehow back to number clues. I then found the combination Yin Yang/Hiroimono, which I thought was a nice transition, with a few less familiar puzzles. I did have to figure out how to properly write Hiroimono puzzles without any given clues as I had never done that before. From here I opted to write a Doppelblock puzzle. It was easiest to write this puzzle without any repeating clues as this would make the relay the smoothest. It was a bit hard to get it right, as some clues are just more conductive in this puzzle type. I was planning on writing a Minesweeper puzzle next, and figured I could easily relay it to any puzzle type. That's why I chose to write a Magnets next, which could transfer to a Battleships puzzle. I wrote a Magnets puzzle with missing clues, which I have written many of. I chose a smaller size as they are generally viewed as hard to many people. I had to make sure the remaining clues were under 20 as that's the max number of ship segments a standard Battleships puzzle has. It worked out perfectly and the Battleships construction was really easy to finish. When I went back, I couldn't get the Minesweeper in a way that the relay to it and from it was nice. That's why I tried a number of other puzzle types. Then I tried Country Road, which caused an odd design experience. I tried to write them normally, except I couldn't get it so it would transfer to the already written Magnets puzzle, so that's why I changed it around. I first marked a bunch of empty squares so that it would transfer properly to the Magnets puzzle, and then reversely engineered the regions so a solvable valid puzzle would exist which has those empty squares in those places. I think the result is nice and I doubt anyone would expect it was designed that way from the solve. I thought 9 puzzles would be enough, even though I had originally planned on making 10 puzzles. I just think some of the relays would take more time than others, so I thought this would make a long enough round for the championship.
The puzzles can be found below.
Thursday, 4 October 2012
World Puzzle Championship 2012: Round 2 Blackjack
The second round we are facing consists of twenty-one puzzles around a twenty-one theme as it is the twenty-first World Puzzle Championship. This is one of the larger mixed rounds, lasting 2 hours, which generally means far too many puzzles for the amount of time. So, a lot of options to choose from and hopefully make the right choices in which puzzles to start with, getting all the big pointers done in the middle and finishing on some quick low pointers to get those last extra points in and not end up leaving 25 points out by just running 30 seconds short on solving the puzzle. Usually my timing and puzzle choices are pretty good. This was shown best at the 2010 WSC, where I managed to put the last digit in exactly when the timer ran out. I was sitting near the spectators, who could see me solving and got a congratulatory pat on the back for finishing so nicely within the time limit.
This post will feature five puzzles from the twenty-one genres featured in this round.
Puzzles can be found below.
This post will feature five puzzles from the twenty-one genres featured in this round.
Puzzles can be found below.
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Hungarian Puzzle Championship: Kakuro
At the request of Zoltan Horvath I contributed some puzzles to the Hungarian Puzzle Championship held this weekend. I will post all puzzles this week. The general requirements were 2-4 puzzles for a solving time of 10-15 minutes. The test consisted of a classics and non-clasics round. Today we start with Kakuro, which was featured in the classics round.
I've always liked writing Kakuro puzzles, but I generally tend to write difficult puzzles. So my first goal was to write 2 easy puzzles with all basic deductions, with openings in multiple places. It took me a while to get that done actually as I automatically tend to put in harder things without thinking about it. I made 2 easy puzzles which turned out well. In hindsight it would have probably been better to make them a bit smaller to make the solving time less. But I figured they'd both fall between 1-3 minutes in solving time for the fastest solvers. The first one was just a simple circular pattern you can almost go in on big haul around the track. The second puzzle was a bit more open pattern, with a few more places where the puzzle can open up. I had the first one tested to see if this was actually enough on the easy path, as I find it hard to actually judge difficulty of Kakuros and it seemed to be okay.
The third puzzle I wrote had a few harder deductions, but the main thing that made it harder is that is has a single opening from which you have to work through the puzzle. It turned out to really not be anything special. It was one of those puzzles I have written many of.
The fourth puzzle I wrote is actually one of my favourite Kakuros I have written ever. It was built around a pattern which employed eight interlocked 8-cell sums. I made them all a different value. Because of the many larger sums it uses certain techniques which you don't normally encounter much in Kakuro puzzles. It has some similarities in layout and solving to another puzzle I have written before. I think this one turned out better.
During testing of course it again turned out that my judging of Kakuro difficulty was far off the norm and instead of four puzzles, only two of the puzzles were used. Only the second and third puzzle ended up in the championship but I'm still posting all four puzzles in this post.
Rules for Kakuro
Puzzles can be found below
I've always liked writing Kakuro puzzles, but I generally tend to write difficult puzzles. So my first goal was to write 2 easy puzzles with all basic deductions, with openings in multiple places. It took me a while to get that done actually as I automatically tend to put in harder things without thinking about it. I made 2 easy puzzles which turned out well. In hindsight it would have probably been better to make them a bit smaller to make the solving time less. But I figured they'd both fall between 1-3 minutes in solving time for the fastest solvers. The first one was just a simple circular pattern you can almost go in on big haul around the track. The second puzzle was a bit more open pattern, with a few more places where the puzzle can open up. I had the first one tested to see if this was actually enough on the easy path, as I find it hard to actually judge difficulty of Kakuros and it seemed to be okay.
The third puzzle I wrote had a few harder deductions, but the main thing that made it harder is that is has a single opening from which you have to work through the puzzle. It turned out to really not be anything special. It was one of those puzzles I have written many of.
The fourth puzzle I wrote is actually one of my favourite Kakuros I have written ever. It was built around a pattern which employed eight interlocked 8-cell sums. I made them all a different value. Because of the many larger sums it uses certain techniques which you don't normally encounter much in Kakuro puzzles. It has some similarities in layout and solving to another puzzle I have written before. I think this one turned out better.
During testing of course it again turned out that my judging of Kakuro difficulty was far off the norm and instead of four puzzles, only two of the puzzles were used. Only the second and third puzzle ended up in the championship but I'm still posting all four puzzles in this post.
Rules for Kakuro
Puzzles can be found below
Rules: Kakuro
Fill every cell with a digit from 1-9. Numbers above a diagonal line indicate the sum of the digits in the consecutive white cells immediately to its right. Numbers below a diagonal line indicate the sum of the digits in the consecutive white cells immediately below it. No digit can be repeated within a single sum.
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