Puzzle 95: Logicsmith v2.0

Fillomino Read here for instructions.

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 95: Logicsmith v2.0
Fillomino

Four years ago (okay, 45 months ago), there’s Logicsmith Exhibition, back when Grant was still active on his blog (before he migrated to Grandmaster Puzzles). Back then, I was still starting at constructing logic puzzles; you can see my submission there. Here is a “revamped” version: exactly the same layout as before, and each of 1-9 appears exactly four times as in the competition.

…okay, I just got this theme idea and toyed with it, to liven up my blog again.

Puzzle 94: Writer Block

Cross the Streams Shade some of the cells black so that all black cells are connected and no 2×2 square is entirely shaded black. The clues outside the grid gives the contents of the corresponding row/column, reading from left to right and from top to bottom. A number means a group of consecutive black cells; two different groups in the same row/column must be separated by at least one white cell. A question mark indicates a single group of unknown size; an asterisk indicates an unknown number of groups (which may differ in size, and there might be no group at all).

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 94: Writer Block
Cross the Streams

Yay, I’m back. Actually, this might be temporary as well; I’m not sure why I don’t feel the same interest on making puzzles as I had a few years ago, but let’s hope I can still trickle out puzzles occasionally. (The title is a reference on that. Just back from writer block, if this is considered writing. Better than a title like “Logical”, at least.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing several “programming” games. I’ve completed SpaceChem (finished all obligatory puzzles for the story) a few months back; I got my hands on TIS-100 which I recently completed (but with the upcoming bonus campaign I’ll have several more puzzles to do); I’m redoing Manufactoria after I realized I haven’t completed it. Those might be not exactly the kind of puzzles that you (as in people that enjoy pencil puzzles like this) like, but who knows.

Puzzle 91: Margin of Error

Heteromino Divide the white squares into polyominoes of size 3 such that no two identical polyominoes that are also identically oriented are orthogonally adjacent.

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 91: Margin of Error
Heteromino

Oh yay I’m alive.

There we go. Recently I got the inspiration of Heteromino with a two-cell wide empty border. A 10×10 doesn’t seem to work, since I only have 6×6 space to work with the black cells, but a 14×14 looks good. Besides, I can say “here’s the 10×10 puzzle, and in case you need it, here’s two-cell margin of error around the grid if you’re stuck or something”.

…yes, I appear to be terribly uninspired for titling puzzles.

Also, I appear to start playing Pokémon Trading Card Game Online. It’s free to play, although getting the in-game currency to get more cards might be a little hard.

Puzzle 85: Loose Strands

Pure Loop Loop: Draw a loop that passes all white cells and no black cell such that the loop goes horizontally or vertically at all times and never touches or crosses itself.

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 85: Loose Strands
Pure Loop

There we go, the last of the series. Of course, the blog is turned off again for the moment, at least until I manage to construct more puzzles. I’m busy too, you know. (By the way, expect things.) Answer key would be “lengths of horizontal segments in row/vertical segments in column” for R1/C2 (or R2/C1 or something).

Another difficult “opening”. Also for some reason I find sudden interest on Pure Loop and Heteromino now, like exploring two untouched lands… (Okay, I think I see it being used in more things now, but still.) Did you know that Heteromino almost got into FAST (as an uninteresting 3×3), but Deb decided it was too obscure and got replaced with Kakuro, which in turn also got replaced by Next Term? The more you know.

Puzzle 84: Chopsticks

Hashiwokakero Draw some bridges connecting the islands (circles). Bridges can only run horizontally or vertically, and all islands must be connected (it must be possible to visit any island by using the bridges). Bridges cannot cross each other. Between any two islands, there may be at most two direct bridges connecting them. A number on an island gives the number of bridges connected to that island.

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 84: Chopsticks
Hashiwokakero

Because “hashi” can mean “chopsticks”. Fourth of the rejected series for FAST. The answer key would be “write 1 for every single bridge and 2 for every double bridge that crosses/goes along the marked rows”, with the two bottom rows as marked.

This is probably hard because you need to observe for the opening, a bit like the dreaded Hitori. Afterwards, I’d put it no more than a medium. And I hate making Hashi’s solution image; just check that answer when you’re done or something and guess how I made it.

Puzzle 82: 5×10

Heyawake Dynasty-style: Shade some cells black so that no two black cells are orthogonally adjacent and all white cells are connected. A number inside a black bordered region—a room—indicates the number of black cells in the room. A run of contiguous white cells in the same row/column cannot span over two room boundaries.

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 82: 5×10
Heyawake

Second rejected puzzle. As you can guess, some of the top rows would have become the answer keys, and the bottom part I still can’t figure out a logical solution for.

Three more to come. Also the ordering of how these puzzles appear is determined indirectly by Yoshiap, whose I simply asked “give a permutation of 1,2,3,4,5”. 😛

From The Archives 001: Symmetric–

This puzzle originally appeared in Deception, as the Bottom puzzle of Elimination Tapa.

Elimination Tapa Nurikabe-style: Shade some of the cells black. Black cells must be connected, but no 2×2 square may be all black. Cells containing numbers may not be shaded black. A cell with numbers represents the lengths of contiguous black cells in the cells adjacent to itself, separated by at least one white cell between different groups.

In addition, each square with numbers has one extra number. Removing extra numbers is part of the puzzle. Question marks indicate unknown numbers.

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

From The Archives 001: Symmetric–
Elimination Tapa

Clearly intended to be a standalone post for this.

Yeah, reposting puzzles I’ve published somewhere else. This includes my old blog.

Also, yay, managed to disable anti-aliasing with a program!

Puzzle 79: Hidden Object

Expected difficulty Hard • For personal reasons, I decide not to release the answer/solution for this puzzle. Sorry 😦

Puzzle 79: Hidden Object
Nonogram
(click to enlarge)

Puzzle 71: Checkerboard Insanity

Tapa Region Party Follow regular Tapa rules: Do Nurikabe-style. (The black cells are called the Tapa wall.) Cells with numbers may not be black. Numbers in a cell indicate the sizes of the black square groups adjacent to the clue square; two separate black square groups must be separated by at least one white square.

In addition, Region Party variation apples. The two quadrants with blue cells and “C” at the top-left of the cells indicate Clones quadrants: The contents of the two quadrants must be identical on the blue cells. (There is no restriction for cells inside the quadrants that are not blue.) The two quadrants with red cells and “E” at the top-right of the cells indicate Extra Region. After tilting the grid by 45 degrees, the blackened cells on the red squares also form a Tapa wall. (Note that all red squares form a single region, not two separate regions.)

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 71: Checkerboard Insanity
Tapa Region Party

Perhaps the only puzzle among the most recent 20 or so that is made purely on computer, not using my puzzle scratch book. The difficulty is hard; I wanted to go with medium but the variant is pretty confusing on itself.

Anyway. What inspired me? The recent TVCs and CTC on LMI, of course. Plus me recalling that I’ve done this crazy variant before. :3

And…uh…this variant is hard >_< The best finish I’ve found is unsatisfactory. But fair enough for a puzzle I make in half hour or so.

I need to make some easy puzzles for my “mate”… Ideas?

Puzzle 70: Mii~ >w<

Greater Than Fillomino Follow regular Fillomino rules. In addition, inequality signs appear on the grid; these signs must be satisfied by the numbers in the squares involved.

Expected difficulty Hard • Answer • Comment/E-mail if you want a solution to be published

Puzzle 70: Mii~ >w<
Greater Than Fillomino
(Here for plain version)

So, as a “natural” follow-up of my current interest on roleplaying, this is obligatory. All givens form either the emoticon ^^ or <3. I wanted to include =3 (equals sign and 3, effectively two horizontally adjacent 3’s) but if I can use only two emoticons why not. I didn’t want to figure out what happens with only one emoticon though, this by itself is already difficult to construct…

Hard, yeah. Because a few parts are hard. But if I’d use the average, this would be somewhere around medium, because the easy parts are easy. And the puzzle breaks down nicely into parts. *insert obligatory reference to vore*

So! This puzzle is a gift for an RP friend that is curious about puzzles. He solved Puzzle 1, a puzzle I believe to be “final test to see whether you advance from beginner to intermediate Fillomino solver”. Even though he clocked 2 hours, this is a fabulous achievement for someone with no prior experience of logic puzzles. And so I felt really guilty when testsolving the puzzle; I found the puzzle to have the mentioned hard steps. There are even parts where my best method is still trial and error to some extent (read: “what-if”s), but hey. Who cares about time. Let’s see whether the aforementioned RP friend can solve this :3

And finally, yeah. Mii~ >w<