Deception Preview 6: Wiggly Rooms

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 6.0/10 • Target times 03:00 07:00 15:00 1:00:00
Solution Answer key (highlight →) 12111,133 • PNG (not uploaded) • ZIP of PDF (not uploaded) • DOCX (not uploaded)

Deception Preview 6: Wiggly Rooms
Surveyors Heyawake

Sixth preview puzzle. Do you note that each of 2,3,4,5 appears exactly once in the grid and exactly once outside the grid? That was a theme, but a minor one. The major one is the obvious “wiggly” rooms everywhere, which is a pain to make with MS Excel.

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 32: Two New Recruits

Surveyors Heyawake, now with additional two types of clues and a change in rules. Read.

Shade some cells black such that:
– No two black cells are orthogonally adjacent
– All white cells form a single polyomino
– No line of contiguous white cells span over 2 or more room borders (thick borders)

Additionally, there are two types of clues: in-grid and out-grid. (Names in brackets tell the name of the clues. Yes, they are now canonized.)
– In-grid clues may refer to the number of black squares in the room (region bordered by thick border) (Heyawake) or the number of black squares in the 3×3 square centered at the square containing the clue (Minesweeper). There can be at most 1 Heyawake clue in a region.
– Out-grid clues may refer to the number of black squares in the row/column (Tents) or the length of some line of maximum contiguous white cells in the row/column (Freedom). There can be at most 1 Tents clue in a row/column.

By maximum contiguous white cells I mean that it cannot be extended; it’s bounded by either the grid’s boundary or some black cell.

Note that it’s possible for a region to have clues but none of them are Heyawake, and for a row/column to have clues but none of them are Tents.

As the popularity of the surveyor job skyrockets, new positions appear. As reported in the headlines, two new positions that work from outside the complex are now available; one reports the number of obstructions in the line of sight and the other reports one of the freedoms instead. As usual, they mix together, making it pretty much impossible to tell them apart.

Your task stays the same. Our surveyors have done their jobs dutifully; now your task is to reveal the traps. Rated medium-hard.

Puzzle 32: Two New Recruits
Surveyors Heyawake v2

A gift for David Millar (thegriddle.net), as the second person to complete Puzzle 25 (linked above). He wanted Surveyors Heyawake with a new twist. I added several (depending on how you define a “twist”). Enjoy!

The next puzzle (okay, one of Puzzle 33-35) will be the gift to the third solver. Yes, Puzzle 25’s offer has ended. Time to make a new offer 😛

Puzzle 25: Surveyors Heyawake

Surveyors Heyawake, also known as my favorite original genre (as of the time of post). Medium, a little bit toward hard.

Puzzle 25: Surveyors Heyawake

Apparently it’s not a small-grid puzzles batch!

Who says I can’t commemorate my 25th puzzle with something special? Antisymmetry, if you look closer (opposite givens add up to 5). The regions somewhat form a windmill, although that is not really intended. Weird regions, but I believe I don’t need to instate the “white contiguous region may not span over two boundaries” rule because it’s equivalent.

So… I’m running low on ideas. The first three people who e-mail me the correct solution to this puzzle may pick a genre, to be posted before Puzzle 40.

Puzzle 8: Surveyors Heyawake

Surveyors Heyawake, 10×10. Should be rather easy.

Puzzle 8: Surveyors Heyawake

Hm things seem pretty easy. That’s what happened when I tried making a “normal” Heyawake with absolutely no symmetry. The 6×6 room is pretty fun to toy with though; think of it as a Minesweeper. Oops spoiler; but you don’t think that 11 is going to be a Minesweeper clue don’t you -_-

Hm, Surveyors Heyawake and Smullyanic Dynasty can make some great hybrid, due to both having Minesweeper clue-style. I’ll see how I can toy with it…but I need to try making a Smullyanic Dynasty first.

Puzzle 4: Take One

Surveyors Heyawake (v0.1) Follow regular Heyawake rules: Follow dynasty rules. Additionally, no connected white cells in the same row/column may span over one bold border.

There are numbers in the grid. For each “region” (bold-bordered area), exactly one of the numbers act as a Heyawake clue: the number is equal to the number of black squares in the region. All other numbers are Minesweeper clues: each number is equal to the number of black squares on the number or adjacent to the number.

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

Puzzle 4: Take One
Surveyors Heyawake

Original text
Yeah bad title maybe. But I think this one has some pretty tricks waiting (besides the tricks of Heyawake)… I’m trying to get a few basic tricks I figured out here. However, this would be rated somewhere like medium, or 4 out of 10. Whoa.

And yes, I miscounted; I didn’t see Puzzle 3 in my book so I reported that I had only two puzzles ready, while I have three. 😛

Additional text on 27 September 2013
Take One of Surveyors Heyawake. When the rules are still rather crude. (The finalized version is actually much more complex x3 )