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 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.

Puzzle 40: Sky’s Revenge

Liar Slitherlink. Follow regular Slitherlink clues (make a loop following the gridlines that doesn’t touch/cross itself anywhere, and givens tell the number of sides used around that cell). However, exactly one given in each row/column is wrong. The task of determining which givens are lying is given to you.

It was a tough journey, but Sky made it to Odd Island. He was pretty surprised to see a few zeroes; perhaps the zeroes betrayed Even Island inhabitants? In any case, he managed to avoid suspicions, and in case someone attacked him (he’s #492, so yeah), he simply Seed Flared them away.

He made it to the prison that he suspects to hold many of the twos, and boy, what a surprise! No less than 86 twos are present. They sure kidnapped a lot of twos! He wanted to free them all from those pesky guards, but he surely could not Seed Flare those innocent twos. So he went with a very unusual approach…of Liar Slitherlink-ing them.

Wait… Isn’t Sky’s previous puzzle a Liar Slitherlink? Is Sky our hero? Hm…

Puzzle 40: Sky’s Revenge
Liar Slitherlink

Yes, MellowMelon-inspired. Although I don’t think he made that for the purpose of maximizing the number of 2s; mine started with a grid of 2s and givens got replaced when they don’t fit.

Also, if you’ve solved the grid, you may continue the story:

Sky’s bizarre strategy worked! Somehow. The guards were disoriented by being called liars and stuffs, and they all went arguing, allowing those twos to escape. They all went back, Sky was reunited with his lost two, and he could finally make another puzzle involving twos. Maybe next time…

Puzzle 39: Where Are My Twos?!

Liar Slitherlink. Follow regular Slitherlink clues (make a loop following the gridlines that doesn’t touch/cross itself anywhere, and givens tell the number of sides used around that cell). However, exactly one given in each row/column is wrong. The task of determining which givens are lying is given to you.

BREAKING NEWS: Leader of Flygrass Town lost his twos; police are looking at possible suspects
“It was all there when I went to sleep last night, but I found them missing this morning!” Sky cried.

That was two days ago. Now Sky has gotten over his loss, and he wants a revenge. “I’ll show them what I can do even without those 2s!” Sky adamantly proclaimed. After leaving this medium puzzle, he leaves to the Odd Island, the most probable suspect of where the 2s are kept hostage in.

Puzzle 39: Where Are My Twos?!
Liar Slitherlink

Yes, no 2 at all. Stay tuned for the second part (and also the final part) of Sky’s mini-adventure of reclaiming his 2s!

Puzzle 13: Tetromino Slitherlink

Tetromino Slitherlink. Follow usual rules of Slitherlink. In addition, the gray squares can be partitioned into tetrominoes such that in each tetromino, each number from 0-3 appears. Pretty hard because it’s first time. Well it’s first time; I can’t estimate its difficulty properly.

Puzzle 13: Tetromino Slitherlink

Yay. Okay the tetrominoes are obvious, but putting the numbers aren’t that obvious.

I can obviously imagine a version where the tetrominoes can be ambiguous. As long as the numbers (and hence the loop) are fixed, it doesn’t matter how the tetrominoes are divided. Or otherwise, without given numbers. The latter would be way more difficult actually, because I couldn’t think of an opening without a number. Time to ask someone good at making difficult puzzles.

Puzzle 10: Slitherlink

Slitherlink; common logic puzzle I’d say. Google for rules. 17×17, easy-to-medium.

Puzzle 10: Slitherlink (click to enlarge)

UPDATE (7-Aug-2012, 19:38 UTC+7): Fixed an ambiguity around the G.

Okay, so you’re reminded that it’s the beginning of a new week. At least for me. Notice the symmetry?

That was extremely hard to think of. I started by listing all letters where it can form another letter when turned 180 degrees; I got like 7 pairs, including “A” paired with “U/V” (the middle two letters), and also 7 single letters. Then after some failed tries (like, trying SWAP with its reverse being JUMS…wut?), I noticed the word NOW which can be turned to MON. I tried to think of a Monday date that is also rotationally symmetric, and as you see, 6 August is symmetric. Quite. It’s pretty rare to see U with a line, but whatever.

However, before getting the idea of making a “today’s date”, I started with planning that every 10 puzzles (puzzles with puzzle number ending with 0), I will make a large puzzle (at least 289 cells). That’s also why I tried my best to construct two puzzles (Puzzle 8-9), as I haven’t stocked enough to publish this one. I’m also planning to make an extra large puzzle (at least 1395 cells (31×45) or something extremely fancy to overcome the restriction) every 50 puzzles or 100 puzzles, but it seems like I’m having a long way to go…

Puzzle 2: Whirlpools

Jigsaw Slitherlink Follow Slitherlink rules: Draw a loop along the gridlines (only horizontal and vertical movements between the dots) such that the loop never touches or crosses itself. A number on a square indicates the number of edges of the square that are on the loop (not inside, on).

In addition, the board has been broken into pieces. Assemble the pieces before solving. The pieces cannot be rotated nor reflected.

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

Puzzle 2: Whirlpools
Jigsaw Slitherlink
(click to enlarge)

Original text of post
Yes I’m doing weird variations now. Shouldn’t be too hard with several forced clues actually, but well, it’s first attempt on Slitherlink Jigsaw.

Last updated 27 September 2013

Puzzles!

Yeah, I will continue making puzzles, only not at the same rate as the one in my blog. Probably once every time I have the time. Maybe like betaveros and his one-month-a-puzzle schedule (though he starts deviating to less than a week per puzzle (who said I won’t either? (yay parentheses nesting))). If I can make the picture from this phone. >_<

Meanwhile, inspired from this blog entry, here’s a little puzzle for you to crack…

S01 – Slitherlink

This is a Slitherlink puzzle, with the All-Odd variation. All the odd numbers have been given to you; an empty cell indicates that its clue is not odd. Your task is not (only) to find the solution; your task is to prove that the solution is unique.

EDIT: Okay prove that there is no solution. Apparently you must make a loop.

Yeah it’s cruel. And whoa a post within a post.