Puzzle 78: Totally Not An Approval

Scrabble Example

Scrabble Put some letters into the grid. The words that can be read (a span of two or more letters, preceded and followed by either the edge of the grid or a blank space) must be listed on the right, and no other word can be formed. All letters must form a single connected region.

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

Puzzle 78: Totally Not An Approval
Scrabble

So Prasanna asked me to testsolve a Scrabble puzzle, with a word bank that resembles a sentence but has broken grammar. I suddenly got the idea for this word bank (which, Prasanna, has a perfect grammar, even if it uses a slang (v.intr. definition #4) 😛 ), and quickly whipped this puzzle in head. Turns out it’s unique, so why not. It’s actually Easy-Medium or something, as it’s not that trivial, but heck whatever.

Aftermath: Prasanna went hyper.

Also I went on to replace Puzzle 5; nobody noticed “the second path goes nowhere” and “the second path leads to freedom” are two contradictory statements?

Puzzle 65: Abuse of the Rules

BWG Loop Draw a loop visiting all cells that moves only horizontally and vertically, and turns only at centers of cells. Between two circles of the same color (both black or both white), there may not be any turn. Between two circles of different colors (one black and one white), there must be exactly one turn. (The loop is free to turn on circles.) A gray circle stands for either black or white, and might be different for the two segments it’s adjacent to (it might act as black for one direction and white on the other direction).

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

Puzzle 65: Abuse of the Rules
BWG Loop

(image seems bad; click to view full image)

God how long has this blog been without puzzles. Here’s a quick puzzle to fix for that.

This puzzle is made in response to IPC 2013. When I first saw Black-White-Gray Loop, this is my first impression. Of course, it turns out that the author is not this wicked, but it’s a neat abuse nevertheless.

Meanwhile, I got rid of all sorts of time and difficulty numbers. Now the difficulty is only “easy/medium/hard/insane”. Much better, because I can’t estimate difficulty properly. Solutions are now demand-based; I will not work on any solution unless someone comments/e-mails/notify me in some way or I like the puzzle too much that I want to publish a solution by myself. Much better time management for me.

I have another puzzle published in about 8 hours; stay tuned!

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.

Puzzle 58: That Classic Board Game

Mastermind There is a hidden 5-digit string, where its characters are among 1-9 only, but the characters may repeat. The objective is to discover this string. There are several guesses that has been made about the string. Each guess is a string of the same length and from the same character set, and its response is a number of black circles and/or white circles (might be none). A black circle indicates a character that exists in the hidden string and is on the correct position, while a white circle indicates a character that exists in the hidden string but is not on the correct position. For example, if the hidden string is 11223 and the guess is 13123, three black circles for the first 1, the 2, and the last 3, and a white circle for the other 1 will be awarded.

Difficulty 1.5/10 Master time 0:20 Expert time 0:50

Puzzle 58: That Classic Board Game
Mastermind

Whee. This thing is easy to make in head. This puzzle, not this genre. I’m sure it’s possible to make a difficult puzzle in this genre.

Also, note that Puzzle 57 has reached the fifth version, which I hope to be unique.

Finally, stay tuned. I’ll post one or two more puzzles soon.

FFF 24: Warping and Wrapping

Fancy Fillomino February: This is a series of 28 (twenty-eight) 7×7 Fillomino puzzles over the February. Every 00.00 UTC+7 a new puzzle will be up. The basic Fillomino rules apply unless otherwise indicated.

Toroidal Fillomino In addition to the regular Fillomino rules, the grid is toroidal. The top and the bottom sides are connected, and so are the left and the right sides.

Difficulty 2.0/10 Master target 0:30 Expert target 1:30

FFF24: Warping and Wrapping
Toroidal Fillomino

Sky is bored. Whipping up a simple variant of Fillomino.

FFF 23: X5

Fancy Fillomino February: This is a series of 28 (twenty-eight) 7×7 Fillomino puzzles over the February. Every 00.00 UTC+7 a new puzzle will be up. The basic Fillomino rules apply unless otherwise indicated.

Liar Fillomino In addition to the regular Fillomino rules, exactly one given on each row/column is false. Which givens are false are up to you to determine.

Difficulty 2.5/10 Master target 0:40 Expert target 1:30

FFF23: X5
Liar Fillomino

Is there a specific reason necessary to make a puzzle highly symmetric and has many 5s? Sky said no.

FFF 18: Elbows

Fancy Fillomino February: This is a series of 28 (twenty-eight) 7×7 Fillomino puzzles over the February. Every 00.00 UTC+7 a new puzzle will be up. The basic Fillomino rules apply unless otherwise indicated.

Sashigane Fillomino In addition to the regular Fillomino rules, all polyominoes must be L-shaped. An L-shaped polyomino has a single cell as an elbow, and two perpendicular consecutive cells as legs, each leg having an end at the elbow.

Difficulty 2.5/10 Master target 0:25 Expert target 1:30

FFF 18: Elbows
Sashigane Fillomino

Large unfilled areas always somehow mesmerize Sky. Now Sky put two of them at the price of making the rest pretty constrained. Still a good puzzle for him at least.

FFF 17: Sequences

Fancy Fillomino February: This is a series of 28 (twenty-eight) 7×7 Fillomino puzzles over the February. Every 00.00 UTC+7 a new puzzle will be up. The basic Fillomino rules apply unless otherwise indicated.

Shikaku Fillomino In addition to the regular Fillomino rules, all polyominoes be rectangles.

Difficulty 2.0/10 Master target 0:40 Expert target 2:00

FFF 17: Sequences
Shikaku Fillomino

Sequences! Although Sky put in that 2 for good measure.

FFF 16: Island in Stream or Stream in Island?

Fancy Fillomino February: This is a series of 28 (twenty-eight) 7×7 Fillomino puzzles over the February. Every 00.00 UTC+7 a new puzzle will be up. The basic Fillomino rules apply unless otherwise indicated.

Nurikabe Fillomino Follow regular Fillomino rules. A polyomino may only have at most one green square, and no two polyominoes containing green squares may touch orthogonally. Afterwards, shade the polyominoes not containing any green square. The shaded cells must form a single polyomino but may not have a 2×2 shaded area anywhere.

Difficulty 2.0/10 Master target 0:30 Expert target 1:30

FFF 16: Island in Stream or Stream in Island
Nurikabe Fillomino

Weird. Is the stream of size 32 or is the island is the one that is of size 32? Either way, Sky was a little bit hyped when he got the inspiration of this unusual puzzle.

FFF 15: 1, 2, 3

Fancy Fillomino February: This is a series of 28 (twenty-eight) 7×7 Fillomino puzzles over the February. Every 00.00 UTC+7 a new puzzle will be up. The basic Fillomino rules apply unless otherwise indicated.

Fillomino Shapes In addition to the regular Fillomino rules, the given polyominoes must appear in the grid. The polyominoes may be rotated but not reflected.

Difficulty 1.0/10 Master target 0:10 Expert target 0:50

FFF 15: 1, 2, 3
Fillomino Shapes

1, 2, 3! Sky was practicing to make even weirder puzzles, so he began with this simple puzzle.