This weekend were the Polish Sudoku and Puzzle Championships. I was one of the puzzle contributors and test-solved all puzzles for the championship (and a few more that didn't appear). Both events were won by Jan Mrozowski. You can find all puzzles at the following links: Sudoku and Puzzle. (As a small note, there is a printing error in Round 4 (my puzzles). In the larger Summon puzzle, the 3 clue at the bottom should be a 9).
This post will contain all my puzzles that were used at the championships. I used a similar structure to my round as last year, with two puzzles of each type. I tried to get a good mix of different genres, both familiar and unfamiliar. I didn't use any of the types I used last year to keep mixing it up. There's enough genres to choose from, so it seems a bit weird to repeat a genre. I think it worked out well and would love to hear some feedback from the competitors.
Puzzles can be found below.
Wednesday, 15 April 2015
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Puzzle #168: Statue Park, Summon
These three puzzles were originally written for the Polish Puzzle Championships being held the upcoming weekend. I aimed to write a similar set as last year, with 2 puzzles per genre. I again wrote 20 puzzles, but the test times were a bit long for a 60 minute round. I cut the Statue Park puzzles, because they didn't allow for reflection and that was the type that most likely would trip people up from that because of that.
This Summon puzzle was the original harder puzzle, but they both tested too long for their intention. So the smaller puzzle became the harder and I added a smaller puzzle to the set. I've started to like this genre better, but I still feel they somehow stay hard to solve. I think it's because it doesn't have a natural flow and it's sometimes hard to know where to look next. The logic is always solid, but it's easy to get stuck none-the-less.
Puzzles can be found below.
This Summon puzzle was the original harder puzzle, but they both tested too long for their intention. So the smaller puzzle became the harder and I added a smaller puzzle to the set. I've started to like this genre better, but I still feel they somehow stay hard to solve. I think it's because it doesn't have a natural flow and it's sometimes hard to know where to look next. The logic is always solid, but it's easy to get stuck none-the-less.
Puzzles can be found below.
Wednesday, 1 April 2015
2014 Slovak Puzzle Championships
While going through my puzzle files, I came across the Slovak Championships folder. I realised I had never shared these puzzles on my blog. So I figured I might as well share them now.
I was contacted by Zuzanna Hromcova to write puzzles for their championship. We were given a number of categories to write puzzles in. One of the categories was non-grid puzzles, for which I provided three different genres; namely ABC Decoder, Dice and Mastermind. Dice and ABC Decoder are types I enjoy writing; Mastermind I didn't have that much experience with. But it was something I'd like to give a go.
The other categories I picked were Latin Squares and Division puzzles. For each type we had to write a standard genre and a variant on the genre. I picked Skyscrapers, with Haido as the variant. I like Skyscrapers and I thought Haido still had part of the Skyscraper logic, but used differently enough to make it not like solving four skyscraper puzzles.
For the Division set I picked ABCD Division, with Sum Division as the variant. It's a type I have seen a lot when I first started puzzling, but I haven't really seen it much since. I thought sums was an obvious variant, but I haven't really seen it this way much. I have seen a similar variant where the grid has to be divided into a complete set of pentominoes, but not really without this restriction.
I tried to put a bit of theming in the non-grid puzzles. I wrote a few nine digit ABC Decoders for the 2014 24 hour championships, and I thought that was a good size to use in a championship. The letters spell out THE SLOVAK, which was the nicest way I could use nine different letters to write something Slovakia related. I found some words with opposite meanings in the letter set, so I used those. I think it turned out well.
I used a similar opposites theme for the Dice puzzle, with an addition of 5 words to make it unique. I think not all words are necessary for uniqueness, but it solves pretty well this way.
The first Mastermind puzzle looks really nice, with a sequence of numbers and only white circles it solves really nicely. The second one was merely an attempt to construct a nice logical 5 digit puzzle.
I thought both Skyscrapers puzzles turned out nicely. The first puzzle uses three 4s and three 5s. The second puzzle has a trio of the same digit on each side. Of course I couldn't use four different digits as these are the only three digits you can have three of the same clue on the same side in this size.
I find it hard to theme Haido puzzles as the clues are a bit limited, but they both have nice logical paths.
The first time I saw an ABCD puzzle this way was at a Dutch championship. It was a bit of a surprise then. I wrote a similar puzzle for puzzlepicnic once and I thought it would be fun to include one for the championship. The ABCDE puzzle is a standard layout and I think it solves well.
The sum puzzles were a bit hard to work out openings at first as there are so many ways to reach the sums. So I went with obvious opening digits for both puzzles to then work back to more ambiguous digits towards the end. I think they both turned out well.
Puzzles can be found below.
I was contacted by Zuzanna Hromcova to write puzzles for their championship. We were given a number of categories to write puzzles in. One of the categories was non-grid puzzles, for which I provided three different genres; namely ABC Decoder, Dice and Mastermind. Dice and ABC Decoder are types I enjoy writing; Mastermind I didn't have that much experience with. But it was something I'd like to give a go.
The other categories I picked were Latin Squares and Division puzzles. For each type we had to write a standard genre and a variant on the genre. I picked Skyscrapers, with Haido as the variant. I like Skyscrapers and I thought Haido still had part of the Skyscraper logic, but used differently enough to make it not like solving four skyscraper puzzles.
For the Division set I picked ABCD Division, with Sum Division as the variant. It's a type I have seen a lot when I first started puzzling, but I haven't really seen it much since. I thought sums was an obvious variant, but I haven't really seen it this way much. I have seen a similar variant where the grid has to be divided into a complete set of pentominoes, but not really without this restriction.
I tried to put a bit of theming in the non-grid puzzles. I wrote a few nine digit ABC Decoders for the 2014 24 hour championships, and I thought that was a good size to use in a championship. The letters spell out THE SLOVAK, which was the nicest way I could use nine different letters to write something Slovakia related. I found some words with opposite meanings in the letter set, so I used those. I think it turned out well.
I used a similar opposites theme for the Dice puzzle, with an addition of 5 words to make it unique. I think not all words are necessary for uniqueness, but it solves pretty well this way.
The first Mastermind puzzle looks really nice, with a sequence of numbers and only white circles it solves really nicely. The second one was merely an attempt to construct a nice logical 5 digit puzzle.
I thought both Skyscrapers puzzles turned out nicely. The first puzzle uses three 4s and three 5s. The second puzzle has a trio of the same digit on each side. Of course I couldn't use four different digits as these are the only three digits you can have three of the same clue on the same side in this size.
I find it hard to theme Haido puzzles as the clues are a bit limited, but they both have nice logical paths.
The first time I saw an ABCD puzzle this way was at a Dutch championship. It was a bit of a surprise then. I wrote a similar puzzle for puzzlepicnic once and I thought it would be fun to include one for the championship. The ABCDE puzzle is a standard layout and I think it solves well.
The sum puzzles were a bit hard to work out openings at first as there are so many ways to reach the sums. So I went with obvious opening digits for both puzzles to then work back to more ambiguous digits towards the end. I think they both turned out well.
Puzzles can be found below.
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
UKPA Open Team Round: Hole in the Wall
It's been a long time since I actually posted something. I haven't really gotten around to writing puzzles for my blog in ages. I took a break for a while. I have been getting back to writing puzzles a bit, but those have mostly been going out to other places. Some of them might appear again on this blog and others might be seen in other places online.
This post will contain puzzles I wrote as a team round for the UKPA Open. It wasn't an official round. It was more t give the puzzlers some practise in team solving while the organisers finished the final checking. I haven't much idea on the results. I wrote the round in two days and sent it in to Liane two days before the Championship was held; just in time for them to get it ready to be solved. I didn't have time to get it tested, but I hope people still enjoyed it.
The structure of the round is pretty simple. There are six 6 by 6 puzzles and six 10 by 10 puzzles. You are not given the rules of each specific puzzle, but are instead provided with six sets of rules under which each puzzle could be solved. You have to match the puzzles to the rules, so that each rule is used once for each size. Additionally, all 10 by 10 puzzles have a marked 6x6 hole, in which the clues of one of the 6 by 6 puzzles have to be placed, without reflection or rotation. Each 6 by 6 grid can only be placed in one of the 10 by 10 grids. The rules for 6 by 6 puzzle won't necessarily match the rules for the 10 by 10 puzzle it is placed in.
Puzzles found below or through the following link.
This post will contain puzzles I wrote as a team round for the UKPA Open. It wasn't an official round. It was more t give the puzzlers some practise in team solving while the organisers finished the final checking. I haven't much idea on the results. I wrote the round in two days and sent it in to Liane two days before the Championship was held; just in time for them to get it ready to be solved. I didn't have time to get it tested, but I hope people still enjoyed it.
The structure of the round is pretty simple. There are six 6 by 6 puzzles and six 10 by 10 puzzles. You are not given the rules of each specific puzzle, but are instead provided with six sets of rules under which each puzzle could be solved. You have to match the puzzles to the rules, so that each rule is used once for each size. Additionally, all 10 by 10 puzzles have a marked 6x6 hole, in which the clues of one of the 6 by 6 puzzles have to be placed, without reflection or rotation. Each 6 by 6 grid can only be placed in one of the 10 by 10 grids. The rules for 6 by 6 puzzle won't necessarily match the rules for the 10 by 10 puzzle it is placed in.
Puzzles found below or through the following link.
Friday, 27 June 2014
Daily League Sudoku #44: Numpad Sudoku
Here is again a new variant, as far as I'm aware of. But if you really think about it, it's pretty similar to variants that have been used before. I think the tricky part is the fact that the horizontal and vertical rules aren't completely similar. The variant is based off the Numeric Keypad (or Numpad) you find on computer keyboards. On the off chance that someone is not familiar with its design, the given digits are in the design of one.
The puzzle has a narrow solve path through the opening, but finishes off pretty quickly towards the end. I hope it's enjoyable.
Rules for Sudoku
In this Sudoku a dot is given between 2 horizontally adjacent digits if they are horizontally adjacent on a Numeric Keypad. A dot is given between 2 vertically adjacent digits if they are vertically adjacent on a Numeric Keypad. All possible dots have been given.
The puzzle has a narrow solve path through the opening, but finishes off pretty quickly towards the end. I hope it's enjoyable.
Rules for Sudoku
In this Sudoku a dot is given between 2 horizontally adjacent digits if they are horizontally adjacent on a Numeric Keypad. A dot is given between 2 vertically adjacent digits if they are vertically adjacent on a Numeric Keypad. All possible dots have been given.
Friday, 13 June 2014
Daily League Sudoku #43: Next To Nine Sudoku
Last Tuesday was the Dutch Sudoku Championship. I won the Dutch Championship and can now call myself Dutch Sudoku Champion for a year. The puzzles can be found at http://wcpn.nl. All Sudokus were written by Richard Stolk. In case you need the English translations for the instructions, they can be found in this forum post. This Sudoku was one of the types appearing the championship. I thought this was most likely the least common type to appear in the test, so that's why I decided to write one myself.
I think this puzzle isn't too hard, but I will await the times to see if my judgement is accurate. They are more often not correct when it comes to Sudokus. You can solve the puzzle at SudokuCup, which features all Daily League Sudokus suitable for the applet on a one day delay.
Rules for Sudoku
In this Sudoku, the digits on the outside indicate which digits are directly adjacent to the digit 9 in that row or column. The digits are not necessarily listed in order.
I think this puzzle isn't too hard, but I will await the times to see if my judgement is accurate. They are more often not correct when it comes to Sudokus. You can solve the puzzle at SudokuCup, which features all Daily League Sudokus suitable for the applet on a one day delay.
Rules for Sudoku
In this Sudoku, the digits on the outside indicate which digits are directly adjacent to the digit 9 in that row or column. The digits are not necessarily listed in order.
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| Click to enlarge |
Friday, 30 May 2014
Daily League Sudoku #42: Hit Sudoku
Last weekend was the Japanese NumberPlace Championship. It was full of great puzzles, but my favourite was the Hit NumberPlace by Naoki Inaba. I didn't manage to solve it during the championship as I didn't find the logic. But once I found the logic afterwards I really enjoyed it. That's why I decided to write one of my own for the league.
During the solve I realised a bit of logic that I thought would be fun to use in one of these puzzles. I just had to find a nice solution grid in which I could easily implement this. I actually stole a solution grid from the JNPC, which I slightly altered as at one point during construction I ran into no solution. But I noticed that by switching a few numbers around it could still have a solution. The trick I used isn't overly hard but I think it might be wise to try to solve the original puzzle first so that you can understand the logic involved, because I think it is useful to understand the genre before attempting this puzzle. The hit NumberPlace is #19 in the set.
That said, the puzzle is completely logically solvable. I think it is nice but it a bit on the harder side. Still, I hope you'll enjoy it.
Rules for Sudoku
Numbers outside the original grid indicate how many digits are the same in the solution grid in the corresponding row or column.
During the solve I realised a bit of logic that I thought would be fun to use in one of these puzzles. I just had to find a nice solution grid in which I could easily implement this. I actually stole a solution grid from the JNPC, which I slightly altered as at one point during construction I ran into no solution. But I noticed that by switching a few numbers around it could still have a solution. The trick I used isn't overly hard but I think it might be wise to try to solve the original puzzle first so that you can understand the logic involved, because I think it is useful to understand the genre before attempting this puzzle. The hit NumberPlace is #19 in the set.
That said, the puzzle is completely logically solvable. I think it is nice but it a bit on the harder side. Still, I hope you'll enjoy it.
Rules for Sudoku
Numbers outside the original grid indicate how many digits are the same in the solution grid in the corresponding row or column.
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| Click to enlarge |
Friday, 16 May 2014
Daily League Sudoku #41: Pusula
I haven't written any Sudokus in a while. Now that Tom Collyer is taking a
break to focus all his attention on the upcoming World Sudoku
Championships in the UK, I'm taking over the Friday together with Zoltan
Horvath. We'll probably be alternating weeks, so that we both get our
fair share of puzzles in.
I got this type off Serkan Yurekli's blog. I was browsing it for an example of a puzzle type and came across it. I thought it would be a nice idea for the Daily League. I hadn't ever made one. It wasn't too hard to write this type. I think in general many grids will allow a unique solution, but there's a few restrictions to the solution to make that viable. I wrote this one progressively and added the missing arrows in the end. I don't think it's necessary to follow the intended solving path as there's a general strategy to this puzzles that should also always work to solve them. I hope it's enjoyable. It shouldn't be overly hard as some of my other Sudokus have been.
Rules for Sudoku
In this Sudoku an arrow in a cell with an even digit points to the largest odd orthogonal neighbour of that cell. An arrow in a cell with an odd digit points to the largest even orthogonal neighbour of that cell. All arrows have been given.
I got this type off Serkan Yurekli's blog. I was browsing it for an example of a puzzle type and came across it. I thought it would be a nice idea for the Daily League. I hadn't ever made one. It wasn't too hard to write this type. I think in general many grids will allow a unique solution, but there's a few restrictions to the solution to make that viable. I wrote this one progressively and added the missing arrows in the end. I don't think it's necessary to follow the intended solving path as there's a general strategy to this puzzles that should also always work to solve them. I hope it's enjoyable. It shouldn't be overly hard as some of my other Sudokus have been.
Rules for Sudoku
In this Sudoku an arrow in a cell with an even digit points to the largest odd orthogonal neighbour of that cell. An arrow in a cell with an odd digit points to the largest even orthogonal neighbour of that cell. All arrows have been given.
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Polish Puzzle Championships 2014: Team Round
This post will contain the puzzles I provided for the Team Round of the Polish Puzzle Championships. It wasn't an official round but a fun thing to do during the evening. Zoltan Horvath had contacted me if I had time to help working on a team round. as I had just finished my individual round, I figured I could. Zoltan came up with the idea of a Puzzle Labyrinth, where you needed to find your way through the labyrinth by solving puzzles and getting a clue to which would be a next puzzle. Eventually this evolved into a labyrinth where the puzzles were missing from the labyrinth and you had to place them back in the labyrinth. We decided to split the puzzles up into four categories, which would be marked in the empty labyrinth.
On Zoltan's suggestion we gave eachother 8 puzzle types, 2 per category, to write and we could choose one puzzle type ourselves. I gave Zoltan Tapa, Yajilin, Thermometers, Haido, LITS, Regional Akari, Yin Yang and Crossing Loop to write. He chose Lighthouses, First Seen Corral, Loop Extra and L-Dissection to write. He gave me Cave/Corral, Number Sea, Grades, Catloop, Retrograde Battleships, Star Battle, Masyu and Penta Blokus to write. I chose to write Kurotto, Laser, Tetromino Areas and Finnish Snake. Most puzzles had no restrictions, except that they shouldn't be too hard. Only the Circles puzzles had the restriction of being monocoloured. This was only a problem for Yin Yang and Masyu as those normally have multiple coloured circles. The Masyu worked pretty well, but Zoltan's Yin Yang topped that way more in difficulty to create. I was impressed with his puzzle. It was fun to solve. He wrote another harder one too.
When the puzzles were done we had to create a labyrinth. I first wrote one where each puzzle gives you one clue. But that labyrinth turned out too hard, so Zoltan rewrote the labyrinth with two clues per puzzle. This way it was easier to solve.
During competition most teams managed to solve the whole labyrinth, with the quickest doing it within 30 minutes.
You can find the Team Round in the following link.
Besides the Team Round, I will be also adding my harder labyrinth for those who like the challenge. You will have 3 options.
You can choose to solve this first file. [Edit: File updated 19-04-12014 5:25am blog time] It contains all puzzles with correct and incorrect clues. You'll need to solve the puzzles to figure out the correct clues and then use those correct clues to place all the puzzles in the grid.
You can choose to solve this second file. It contains all the correct clues only and no puzzles. It also contains a logical opening on page 3 and the solution on page 4. You can also use this after you get stuck on the first file or to check I didn't make a mistake when setting up the first file.
Lastly you can choose to ignore this challenge and just solve the puzzles or maybe solve the original Team Round with the easier clues.
It's up to you.
Puzzles can be found below. Sorry about the arrows, but didn't feel like redrawing the images for the blog.
On Zoltan's suggestion we gave eachother 8 puzzle types, 2 per category, to write and we could choose one puzzle type ourselves. I gave Zoltan Tapa, Yajilin, Thermometers, Haido, LITS, Regional Akari, Yin Yang and Crossing Loop to write. He chose Lighthouses, First Seen Corral, Loop Extra and L-Dissection to write. He gave me Cave/Corral, Number Sea, Grades, Catloop, Retrograde Battleships, Star Battle, Masyu and Penta Blokus to write. I chose to write Kurotto, Laser, Tetromino Areas and Finnish Snake. Most puzzles had no restrictions, except that they shouldn't be too hard. Only the Circles puzzles had the restriction of being monocoloured. This was only a problem for Yin Yang and Masyu as those normally have multiple coloured circles. The Masyu worked pretty well, but Zoltan's Yin Yang topped that way more in difficulty to create. I was impressed with his puzzle. It was fun to solve. He wrote another harder one too.
When the puzzles were done we had to create a labyrinth. I first wrote one where each puzzle gives you one clue. But that labyrinth turned out too hard, so Zoltan rewrote the labyrinth with two clues per puzzle. This way it was easier to solve.
During competition most teams managed to solve the whole labyrinth, with the quickest doing it within 30 minutes.
You can find the Team Round in the following link.
Besides the Team Round, I will be also adding my harder labyrinth for those who like the challenge. You will have 3 options.
You can choose to solve this first file. [Edit: File updated 19-04-12014 5:25am blog time] It contains all puzzles with correct and incorrect clues. You'll need to solve the puzzles to figure out the correct clues and then use those correct clues to place all the puzzles in the grid.
You can choose to solve this second file. It contains all the correct clues only and no puzzles. It also contains a logical opening on page 3 and the solution on page 4. You can also use this after you get stuck on the first file or to check I didn't make a mistake when setting up the first file.
Lastly you can choose to ignore this challenge and just solve the puzzles or maybe solve the original Team Round with the easier clues.
It's up to you.
Puzzles can be found below. Sorry about the arrows, but didn't feel like redrawing the images for the blog.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Polish Puzzle Championships 2014: Individual Round
Last weekend were the Polish Sudoku and Puzzle Championships. The Championship was also open to International solvers this year. The playoffs would feature the best 4 solvers, while having at least two Polish solvers.
The Sudoku playoffs featured Tiit Vunk, Jakub Ondrousek, Jan Mrozowski and Krystian Swiderski. Jakub Ondrousek finish first in the playoffs, followed by Krystian Swiderski, Tiit Vunk and Jan Mrozowski, making Krystian Swiderski the new Polish Sudoku champion. Full results can be found here.
The Puzzle playoffs featured Przemysław Dębiak, Matus Demiger, Zoltan Horvath and Tomasz Stróżak. The final results remained almost the same with Przemyslaw Dębiak finishing first, followed by Zoltan Horvath, Matus Demiger and Tomasz Stróżak. Full results can be found here.
I contributed a set for the Puzzle Championships for the individual round and wrote a team round together with Zoltan Horvath.
You can find all puzzles of the Championships in the following link: Sudoku Rounds + Team Round, Puzzle Rounds. My puzzle set is round 4. This post will feature all the puzzles from my individual round. Tomorrow I will post the Team round puzzles with a special surprise.
Last year's set was a bit on the difficult side, so I tried to think of a way to rectify that this year. I decided to write 2 puzzles per type, one smaller/easier one and a larger/harder one. I didn't want to make any too difficult. I selected 10 varying types of puzzles. I was hoping to average about 1.5 minutes per puzzle on the smaller ones and about 4.5 minutes per puzzle on the larger ones. I had the set tested by Prasanna Seshadri, James McGowan and Stefan Gaspar. The smaller puzzles made that average pretty well, but the larger puzzles were more inching towards 5-5.5 average and all of them had some outliers. I couldn't really decide well which puzzles to cut so I sent in the whole set and let them know that they could leave out a puzzle type if necessary. During their testing 3 of the larger puzzles seem to have cause some problems as they went up in score. I think the set will have worked well none-the-less for all solvers with the easier puzzles to work with as well, but I'd love to hear some feedback form those who were there.
Puzzles can be found below.
The Sudoku playoffs featured Tiit Vunk, Jakub Ondrousek, Jan Mrozowski and Krystian Swiderski. Jakub Ondrousek finish first in the playoffs, followed by Krystian Swiderski, Tiit Vunk and Jan Mrozowski, making Krystian Swiderski the new Polish Sudoku champion. Full results can be found here.
The Puzzle playoffs featured Przemysław Dębiak, Matus Demiger, Zoltan Horvath and Tomasz Stróżak. The final results remained almost the same with Przemyslaw Dębiak finishing first, followed by Zoltan Horvath, Matus Demiger and Tomasz Stróżak. Full results can be found here.
I contributed a set for the Puzzle Championships for the individual round and wrote a team round together with Zoltan Horvath.
You can find all puzzles of the Championships in the following link: Sudoku Rounds + Team Round, Puzzle Rounds. My puzzle set is round 4. This post will feature all the puzzles from my individual round. Tomorrow I will post the Team round puzzles with a special surprise.
Last year's set was a bit on the difficult side, so I tried to think of a way to rectify that this year. I decided to write 2 puzzles per type, one smaller/easier one and a larger/harder one. I didn't want to make any too difficult. I selected 10 varying types of puzzles. I was hoping to average about 1.5 minutes per puzzle on the smaller ones and about 4.5 minutes per puzzle on the larger ones. I had the set tested by Prasanna Seshadri, James McGowan and Stefan Gaspar. The smaller puzzles made that average pretty well, but the larger puzzles were more inching towards 5-5.5 average and all of them had some outliers. I couldn't really decide well which puzzles to cut so I sent in the whole set and let them know that they could leave out a puzzle type if necessary. During their testing 3 of the larger puzzles seem to have cause some problems as they went up in score. I think the set will have worked well none-the-less for all solvers with the easier puzzles to work with as well, but I'd love to hear some feedback form those who were there.
Puzzles can be found below.
Monday, 14 April 2014
Puzzle #167: Araf, Nurikabe, Capsules, Catloop
Last weekend were the Polish Sudoku and Puzzle Championships. I wrote a set of puzzles for the championships and helped create a team round with Zoltan Horvath. Today I will be posting the puzzles that didn't make it to the championships. Most of them were too hard for their intended purposes. I will also be posting the puzzles that appeared on the championships later this week.
Three of the puzzle types were from the individual rounds and one is from the team rounds.
The Araf puzzles were the first ones I had written of this type. I still had to get used to construction a bit. When I do that I tend to make the puzzles a bit harder, just to see what's possible. The smaller one isn't too hard, but still a bit harder than intended.
The Nurikabe puzzle isn't actually very hard, but I changed it as I saw an aesthetically nicer version of this puzzle. That one was also a bit easier than this puzzle, which I didn't mind.
The Capsules puzzle was really too hard. It was the first puzzle I'd written for the championships and I hadn't totally finalised my intentions then and thus went a bit overboard on difficulty.
The Catloop puzzle was written for the team round. It is a silly name play on the Catwalk puzzles, which was again a renaming of the Meander puzzle type to give a fun visual theming on the website. I think this type is also known under many other names. The first puzzle is an easy puzzle, while the second is a hard puzzle. I had written the second one first and after feed back written two easier puzzles. One of them went to the team round and the other one was left over. I think this was actually the easier of the two puzzles.
Puzzles can be found below.
Three of the puzzle types were from the individual rounds and one is from the team rounds.
The Araf puzzles were the first ones I had written of this type. I still had to get used to construction a bit. When I do that I tend to make the puzzles a bit harder, just to see what's possible. The smaller one isn't too hard, but still a bit harder than intended.
The Nurikabe puzzle isn't actually very hard, but I changed it as I saw an aesthetically nicer version of this puzzle. That one was also a bit easier than this puzzle, which I didn't mind.
The Capsules puzzle was really too hard. It was the first puzzle I'd written for the championships and I hadn't totally finalised my intentions then and thus went a bit overboard on difficulty.
The Catloop puzzle was written for the team round. It is a silly name play on the Catwalk puzzles, which was again a renaming of the Meander puzzle type to give a fun visual theming on the website. I think this type is also known under many other names. The first puzzle is an easy puzzle, while the second is a hard puzzle. I had written the second one first and after feed back written two easier puzzles. One of them went to the team round and the other one was left over. I think this was actually the easier of the two puzzles.
Puzzles can be found below.
Rules: Catloop
Draw a single closed loop through the grid by connecting the centres of cells horizontally and vertically. Numbers on the outside indicate how many cells are used by the loop in that row or column.
This puzzle is a variant on Catwalk. In this puzzle type you draw a path from the given beginning and end point instead of a loop.
This puzzle is a variant on Catwalk. In this puzzle type you draw a path from the given beginning and end point instead of a loop.
Rules: Araf
Divide the grid into some regions, formed
by orthogonally adjacent squares. Each region should contain exactly two given numbers. The
size of each region should be a value (in unit squares) strictly between the two numbers
inside that region. Its size can't be equal to either of the numbers in the region.
Saturday, 5 April 2014
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.
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.
Sunday, 30 March 2014
Puzzle #166: Domino Extra
The last puzzle are two Domino Extra puzzles. I'd written two at the start, but they ended up testing too hard. So I wrote a third one that was much easier than these ones to be included in the WPC set. They have a similar opening, but should both still be fun to solve.
Rules:
Divide the grid along the grid lines so that each given pair of numbers appears in exactly one shape.
Rules:
Divide the grid along the grid lines so that each given pair of numbers appears in exactly one shape.
Saturday, 29 March 2014
Puzzle #165: Blind Spot
Today the second puzzle that wasn't used in the WPC. This is a Blind Spot puzzle. It's actually a size smaller than the puzzle used at the WPC, which was 7x7. But I actually think this was the harder of the two puzzles. That's why the larger puzzle was used in the WPC. I like writing these puzzles, but I think they can be tricky to solve as the logic is a bit unfamiliar compared to other Latin square type puzzles.
Rules for Blind Spot
Rules for Blind Spot
Friday, 28 March 2014
Puzzle #164: Gemini Loop
I was going through my puzzle files and realised I had a few unused puzzles that I had written for the WPC 2013. One of each type was used, but for certain types I'd written a few just to have a choice depending on how they tested. I had posted two sets of puzzles before, that I had originally written for the WPC, but these puzzle types were rejected. These puzzles were the following Yajilin and Pentopia puzzles.
Today's puzzle is a Gemini Loop puzzle. I think it's a nice puzzle but I selected the other one for the WPC as I thought that one solved a bit nicer.
Rules:
Draw a single closed loop through all squares in the grid by connecting them horizontally and
vertically. The loop doesn't touch or cross itself. Cells with the same letter all have the same
appearance as to how the loop passes through it. Cells with different letters have a different appearance.
Today's puzzle is a Gemini Loop puzzle. I think it's a nice puzzle but I selected the other one for the WPC as I thought that one solved a bit nicer.
Rules:
Draw a single closed loop through all squares in the grid by connecting them horizontally and
vertically. The loop doesn't touch or cross itself. Cells with the same letter all have the same
appearance as to how the loop passes through it. Cells with different letters have a different appearance.
Friday, 14 March 2014
Puzzle Competitions: ZeKa 2014
Last weekend was the ZeKa competition in Croatia. It featured both a individual and a team competition this year. The individual competition was won by Goran Vodopija; Marko Obradović and Dragan Tolomanoski finished second and third respectively . The team competition was won by Dragan Tolomanoski, Bojana Vojnović and Vanja Fornazar.
I provided one of the Team rounds this time. The theme of the round was Imposters. The round consisted of four classic puzzle types. Each type had 4 puzzles, where one of the puzzles was an Imposter. It wasn't actually solvable as that puzzle type, but was solvable under a different set of rules. The rules of this puzzle was provided. The imposters weren't designed to be logically deduced, but purely intended to break down under the original rules.
The four puzzle types were LITS, with Double Back as imposter; Shikaku, with Corral as imposter; Skyscrapers with Haido as imposter; Slitherlink, with Turning Fences as imposter. Two of these combinations have appeared on my blog as a Double Trouble puzzle. One of them appeared as such on Grant Fikes' blog. The other is probably possible as a Double Trouble puzzle, but haven't tried that yet.
Puzzles can be found below or in the following PDF.
I provided one of the Team rounds this time. The theme of the round was Imposters. The round consisted of four classic puzzle types. Each type had 4 puzzles, where one of the puzzles was an Imposter. It wasn't actually solvable as that puzzle type, but was solvable under a different set of rules. The rules of this puzzle was provided. The imposters weren't designed to be logically deduced, but purely intended to break down under the original rules.
The four puzzle types were LITS, with Double Back as imposter; Shikaku, with Corral as imposter; Skyscrapers with Haido as imposter; Slitherlink, with Turning Fences as imposter. Two of these combinations have appeared on my blog as a Double Trouble puzzle. One of them appeared as such on Grant Fikes' blog. The other is probably possible as a Double Trouble puzzle, but haven't tried that yet.
Puzzles can be found below or in the following PDF.
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Rules: Shikaku
Divide the grid in a number of non-overlapping rectangles along the grid lines. Numbers in the grid indicate the size of the rectangle they are in. No rectangle can contain more than one number.
Monday, 3 March 2014
Puzzle #163: Turning Fences
The LMI Marathon puzzle that was solved during the competition was actually the second version. In the first version I put in some stuff that came naturally to me for this genre, but stumped the test solvers. That's why there was an easier second version, which still took a relatively long time for the test solvers. That was why I added the Tutorial on my blog, just so people would realise the basics that I had figured out when designing these puzzles.
Here is the first puzzle I wrote. There are a few similarities to the second puzzle as I kept the bits that were solved quickly in the first test solve in the puzzle. It has the same layout as the second puzzle. For those who hadn't figured out the layout, the givens are in the shape of 25 letters that spell out TURNING FENCES LMI MARATHON 3 in an inward clockwise spiral. The 3 shape is made up completely of 3's.
Enjoy, but take some time to get through it logically.
Rules for Turning Fences
Here is the first puzzle I wrote. There are a few similarities to the second puzzle as I kept the bits that were solved quickly in the first test solve in the puzzle. It has the same layout as the second puzzle. For those who hadn't figured out the layout, the givens are in the shape of 25 letters that spell out TURNING FENCES LMI MARATHON 3 in an inward clockwise spiral. The 3 shape is made up completely of 3's.
Enjoy, but take some time to get through it logically.
Rules for Turning Fences
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