Deception Preview 2: A Chaotic Order of Circles

Semi-liar Masyu Draw a loop where all segments are parallel to the edges of the grid, turning only at cell centers. The loop must pass all circles. At a black circle, the loop must turn but may not turn at the squares exactly before it and after it. At a white circle, the loop may not turn but must turn either at the square exactly before it or after it (or both). In addition, every second circle that the loop passes has an incorrect color and should be the other color (white if it’s black and vice versa).

Answer key: Enter the lengths of the horizontal/vertical line segments in the row/column respectively. Enter 0 if there is none.

Difficulty 3.0/10 • Target times 01:30 03:00 07:30 20:00
Solution Answer key (highlight →) 211,6 • PNG (not uploaded) • ZIP of PDF (not uploaded) • DOCX (not uploaded)

Deception Preview 2: A Chaotic Order of Circles
Semi-liar Masyu

Second preview puzzle. Perhaps one of three or something puzzles that don’t have any certain theme.

*checks archive*

Well, seems like there are indeed only three that doesn’t have any theme, and only one will appear in the test. Whee. I have too high standards of aesthetics.

Deception Preview 1: Isolated Crowded Corners

Liar Slitherlink Draw a loop following the grid’s edges. A clue tells the number of edges of the square it’s contained in that belongs to the loop. In addition, every row and every column contains exactly one number that is false.

Answer key: Enter the lengths of the horizontal/vertical line segments in the row/column respectively. If there is a single 10-unit line segment or no line segment in the row/column, enter 0.

Difficulty 4.0/10 • Target times 02:00 04:00 10:00 30:00
Solution Answer key (highlight →) 211,2111 • PNG (not uploaded) • ZIP of PDF (not uploaded) • DOCX (not uploaded)

Deception Preview 1: Isolated Yet Crowded Corners
Liar Slitherlink

First preview puzzle. Not much to say besides that this is the first one made for Deception. If I recall correctly this one lies in the middle of the Liar Slitherlink puzzles in terms of solution times, but of course personal experiences differ.

Deception Preview 0: As Hard As ABC

Surveyors Heyawake Shade some of the cells black. No two black cells may be orthogonally adjacent, and all white cells must form a single polyomino. No continuous line of white cells may span over two room borders. In addition, the following rules govern clues:

For clues inside the grid, each clue can tell either the number of black squares in the region it’s contained in, or the number of black squares adjacent to it (including the cell itself). It might be both.

For clues outside the grid, each clue can tell either the number of black squares in the row/column, or the length of some maximum continuous line of white cells (it cannot be extended, as in it is obstructed by either the grid’s edge or a black square; note that “maximum” doesn’t refer to the maximum length, but rather the nature of the line). It might be both.

Answer key: Enter the lengths of the lines of white cells in the marked row/column. If the row/column has all white cells, enter 0.

Difficulty 8.5/10 • Target times 06:00 20:00 1:30:00 4:00:00
Solution Answer key (highlight →) 53,12111 • PNG (not uploaded) • ZIP of PDF (not uploaded) • DOCX (not uploaded)

Deception Preview 0: As Hard As ABC
Surveyors Heyawake

Welcome to Deception, where your usual logic puzzle genres are twisted to the point of deceiving you.

Okay, this is the preview puzzle series. It begins with this very obviously rejected Surveyors Heyawake puzzle because it’s pretty much too insane to get into the test.

Okay, preview puzzles. The actual first preview puzzle (Deception Preview 1) will be posted on Monday (13-May-2013), at 00.00 UTC (07.00 UTC+7), and the preview puzzles are separated by 12 hours each, so the series will end on Friday (17-May-2013) 00.00 UTC, 24 hours before the test begins.

Also, yes, a modification in target times. I decide to have four target times: Black, Red, Green, and Blue.

– I set Black to be very tight; if you think you’re in the Top 1% of the world, you may attempt this. Usually people that pass this are Top 10 (10 people, not 10%) of the world.
– I set Blue to be very loose. Even if you’re new to puzzle solving, you may attempt this target. As long as you’re not discouraged by hours appearing.
– But most importantly, don’t worry about time if you don’t want speedsolving.

You can decide which target you’re aiming for. Target times might change by reader’s feedback. Categorizing is based on Black target time for whatever reason.

Finally, “Estimated” is assumed to be implicitly stated in “Difficulty”. And yes, I compacted many lines.

EDIT: Added connectivity of white cells to rules. When you’re too used to puzzles, you begin to mentally assume many “obvious” things… Thanks betaveros for reminding.

Special Puzzle 10: A Regular 5×5 Fillomino!

Fillomino

Estimated difficulty 3.0/10
Master target time 00:08
Expert target time 00:45
Answer Not yet present
Solution Not yet present

Special Puzzle 10: A Regular 5×5 Fillomino!
Fillomino

Puzzle 62: Totally Antisymmetric

Masyu Fillomino Draw a loop following regular Masyu rules. The loop passes through centers of squares and can only turn at centers of squares, and can only turn 90 degrees. It might pass some circles. Whenever it passes a black circle, it turns but doesn’t turn both before and after it. Whenever it passes a white circle, it doesn’t turn but turns either before or after it (or both). The remaining cells are to be filled with numbers following regular Fillomino rules; circles not passed by the Masyu loop becomes Fillomino clues.

Estimated difficulty 3.5/10
Master target time 02:00
Expert target time 05:00
Answer PNG (11 kB)
Solution Not yet present

Puzzle 62: Totally Antisymmetric
Masyu Fillomino

Puzzle 61: A Building of Fillomino

See-Through Fillomino Stack the grids in a proper order. Each grid is a valid Fillomino grid. In addition, there exists light blue squares with a small G; such square represents glass, and instead of a standalone number, the glass contains the number at the exact same position at the grid exactly below it. (If it’s another glass, then by definition it should also have some number that can be seen by the grid above.) However, all glasses at the first floor (bottommost grid in the stack) see nothing; they contain empty square.

Estimated difficulty 3.5/10
Master target time 02:00
Expert target time 05:00
Answer PNG (11 kB)
Solution Not yet present

Puzzle 61: A Building of Fillomino
See-Through Fillomino

Puzzle 60 Solution!

I’m not kidding. Puzzle 60 has the solution now.

Also, in accordance to mathematics’ terminology, “answer” refers to the solved puzzle while “solution” refers to the steps to solve the puzzle (or the “walkthrough”).

The PDF’s size bloats. I don’t know why. The zipped file is much smaller though; 167 kB compressed (by ZIP) versus 2802 kB uncompressed. (The DOCX which is used to generate the PDF is 214 kB.) I will always offer the PDF (compressed) and DOCX files, but this might be the only time I offer the uncompressed PDF file.

Anyway. Some time between now and two months later, I will start fixing all templates to puzzles; this includes providing the answer and solution to each puzzle. The solutions will probably take a long time…but expect answers to all puzzles to be published together as I finish fixing templates.

Puzzle 60: Insanity

Fillomino Potpourri Follow regular Fillomino rules. In addition, the following variations apply:

– Snake: There exists a snake in the grid, occupying some of the cells. The snake is a non-touching path. The snake passes through all dark gray cells marked S.

– Tapa: Some of the polyominoes are shaded. Note that a polyomino must either be shaded completely or not shaded at all. These shaded polyominoes form a Tapa wall. The wall obey the green Tapa clues: A set of numbers in a light green square with a dim T is a Tapa clue, which tells the blocks of consecutive cells that belong to the wall in the eight squares adjacent to it. Different wall blocks must be separated by non-wall cells.

– Clones: There are two marked 3×3 matrices; one in the top-left quadrant and one in the bottom-right quadrant. These two matrices must be identical without rotations/reflections. This includes whether a cell is a snake segment and whether a cell is shaded (belong to the Tapa wall).

– No-Rectangle: No polyomino is shaped like a rectangle (or square).

Difficulty 8.0/10 • Target times 06:00 10:00 30:00 2:30:00
Solution Answer (PNG, 8 kB) • Solution (PDF, 295 kB)

Puzzle 60: Insanity
Fillomino Potpourri

Hidden Contest

Yes, yesterday was April Fools, and I tried to make it a “reverse hoax”. That “random puzzle” is not entirely random. If you haven’t found where you should put the answer key, then you’re just starting.

Also I found an ambiguity; I’ll fix it later.

On an unrelated note, I’m now on #PMD-Explorers group at deviantArt. Whee.

Puzzle 59: A Random Puzzle

Tapa Shade some cells black so the black cells form a single polyomino. A cell containing numbers may not be shaded black. Numbers in a cell indicate the length of connected black cells around the cell (cells that share a vertex with it). If there are at least two numbers, they must be separated by at least one white cell. A question mark stands for some non-zero number, and it might not be consistent across the puzzle.

Difficulty 2.0/10 Master time 2:00 Expert time 3:30

Puzzle 59: A Random Puzzle
Tapa

So I’m feeling really uninspired for today.

Oh wait, I missed something.

Answer key: Count the number of black cells.

…answer key? Wait, something is not right here.

EDIT: Puzzle edited. If you have just started though, it might not be of your concern.