Puzzle 63: Rings from Hell

Tetromino Slitherlink Divide the blue cells (marked T) to tetrominoes. Put each of 0,1,2,3 exactly once to each tetromino so each cell contains one number. Afterwards, solve the resulting Slitherlink puzzle: 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.

Tetromino Slitherlink Example

Difficulty 9.0/10 • Target times 15:00 30:00 1:00:00 6:00:00
Solution PNG (not uploaded) • PDF (not uploaded)

Puzzle 63: Rings from Hell
Tetromino Slitherlink

UPDATE 30-May-2014: I forgot whether this is supposed to be Liar too, as there’s no indication of Liar other than the instructions accidentally having a single sentence. I think not, and so I remove the Liar condition for now. I’ll testsolve it again when I have time; if someone finds this puzzle to be broken due to the Liar condition being removed, tell me too.

Yes, Rings from Hell. Because it has rings and it has 9.0/10 difficulty. As in you have to do lots of nontrivial brute force to obtain the solution. But then Tetromino Slitherlink is mostly brute force. I think I should wish you luck. The difficulty escalates (which is much better than decreases, as you can brute force the remaining—wait, then again, brute force is the only way to solve the endgame so far). A far tamer puzzle will be up in 12 hours.

Deception has ended. Congratulations to Hideaki Jo (deu), Palmer Mebane (MellowMelon), and xevs (Ko Okamoto) for topping the test, and additionally EKBM (Endo Ken) alongside the top three to complete the test. Solutions for select puzzles (so far two) can be found in the thread. Solutions are made on demand, so post there or comment here or e-mail me or notify me however the method if you want a solution for some other puzzle.

EDIT: Fixed example. Thanks for mathgrant to remind me.

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.

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