Croatian Puzzle Set

I had been asked to write a puzzle set for a competition in Zagreb last weekend. I wrote a set of puzzles which was a mix of Dutch and Japanese, familiar and unfamiliar, classic and simple variations. There's a lot of puzzle types in here that I havent actually posted on my blog before. The timing of the set was set at 75 minutes, which was longer than the fastest testing. But I have learned from earlier experiences that testing times don't always measure up to the actual test solving. I've added the scores for each puzzle, which equal to 2 points per minute. I think it worked out well, with a mix of easier and harder puzzles. If anyone actually solved them in copetition, I'd love to hear about it.

So here's 14 puzzles in a single post, the most I have done so far. I hope this makes up a bit for the hiatus of a month before. It would of course be easiest to just upload the PDF, but blogspot doesn't seem to offer that option. So instead this post will have all puzzles below.

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 #20: Country Road/Land and Sea

I've never really liked numbers in Country Road puzzles. Most of the Country Road puzzle I placed on Puzzle Picnic are without numbers. They seem more interesting to construct that way. For this one I combined it with Land and Sea, which I think works nicely together.

Rules for Country Road

Rules for Land and Sea

This puzzle has regular Country Road rules, with the addition that the loop can't run through more than 2 white squares consecutively.

Puzzle #18: Land and Sea

Rules for Land and Sea

What I like about this genre is its simplicity. I don't think anyone will have trouble understanding the rules. I don't think it will break ground as a great new genre though, as I haven't yet found many different things to do with it. I do think it's something that could easily be combined with other loop genres, to lead to interesting logic in those types.

Rules: Land and Sea

This genre was developed by Naoki Inaba.

Draw a closed loop through all cells in the grid horizontally and vertically. The loop can't run through more than 2 white cells consecutively.