Puzzle #3

This is an Akari puzzle.

Difficulty: medium

Theme: Few givens

Puz-PRE link.

@mathgrant @edderiofer I never knew you had a blog! The concept is pretty cool but after I've completed it in 3 minutes, it's very limited.

— Scar (@neskalmantas) April 20, 2016

This tweet refers to the previous puzzle, which I did say was trivial. So have a harder Akari, if you think Akari in general is boring and useful only for eye-candy.

Meanwhile, here's what my father said about it:

Congratulations for your new puzzle! I looked at it, and to be honest, I have no idea how to start. I just wonder how many people in this planet could solve this puzzle? How long will they take?

Answer: Many people, and 3 minutes.

Puzzle #2

This is an Akari puzzle.

Difficulty: trivial

Theme: Light Up (in celebration of 4/20)

Puz-PRE link.

For those of us who don't know, Akari was originally called "Light Up".

For those of us who don't know, today is 4/20 in the nonsensical American calendar system, a day that people who smoke marijuana tend to celebrate, by lighting up their joints of marijuana and smoking them, as well as doing other things.

For those of us who don't know, mathgrant came up with this pun, and I just couldn't resist seeing it come to fruition.

For those of us who don't know, I've stopped making my puzzles in Paint.NET and started making them instead in Puz-PRE.

Rules of Akari

Place lightbulbs in the white cells according to the following rules:

1. Lightbulbs light up all cells in the same row and column, including the cell they're in, up to a black cell.
2. All cells must be lit up.
3. No lightbulb may light up another lightbulb.
4. Numbers on black cells represent the number of lightbulbs orthogonally adjacent to that cell.

Below is an example and its answer.

Puzzle #1

This is a Heyawake puzzle.

Difficulty: medium

Theme: 21, for no apparent reason.

Puz-PRE link.

I figured it was time that I started posting puzzles instead of merely reviewing other peoples' puzzle apps or showing how region parity worked.

Because I create these puzzles in Paint.NET instead of using a script to do it like most puzzle authors (I do not have the programming knowledge necessary to write my own script, and I'm really not sure if anyone wants to lend me theirs), these puzzles are of a very low resolution. On the other hand, this means that I don't have to carry around with me a notebook for keeping track of my puzzles; I can instead carry around with me a notebook for keeping track of my puzzles, something which I already do. (Let the meaning of that previous sentence sink in.)

It's a slight shame that it's not my 21st birthday, or that of anyone whom I know. Perhaps I should have waited until it was to post this.

As with pretty much every other puzzle blog on the rest of the internet, DO NOT SPOIL THE ANSWER IN THE COMMENT SECTION. If you absolutely must spoil something regarding the puzzle-solving process, please encode it with ROT13. Should you require assistance with the puzzle, you may email me at the email given in the "About" page.

As with pretty much every other puzzle blog on the rest of the internet, UNIQUENESS LOGIC AND PURE GUESSING ARE FAIR GAME. However, in either case, you will not get as much satisfaction from solving the puzzle, and in the latter, you have not proven uniqueness of the solution, which is something which I somewhat frown upon for most puzzle types.

Finally, should you find multiple solutions to a puzzle, it is best posted as a comment instead of an email.

So in other words, please obey the rules of every other puzzle blog on the internet.

Rules of Heyawake

The grid is subdivided into multiple rectangular regions by thick lines. Shade some cells such that:

1. No two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent.
2. Each numbered region correctly states the number of shaded cells within it.
3. All unshaded cells are connected.
4. No unbroken orthogonal line of unshaded cells straddles two region boundaries.

Below is an example and its answer.