Puzzle #24

This is The Terrifying Torus, an original mashup puzzle. Rules are given below the image.

Difficulty: hard

Theme: Secret Santa Gift for TheGreatEscaper

PDF

Swaroop Penpa (To have the answer checker confirm your solution, all lines, and only those lines, that lie in the centre 16x16 grid must be drawn.)

Rules: The puzzle is the centre 16x16 grid. It is divided into four 8x8 quadrants, and is toroidal, so the left and right sides connect to one another, as do the top and bottom sides. Faint copies of the adjacent grids are added for convenience.

Draw a single loop, whose vertices are grid vertices, that doesn't branch, and whose segments may travel in any direction, not just compass directions. Each visit of the loop to a region must contain a turn. Additionally, if any segment lies in a quadrant, then it must obey the rules of that quadrant:

• The top left quadrant is Kouchoku: Every loop vertex in this quadrant must be at a clue. Every visit to this quadrant must begin and end on a dot. All copies of the same letter must be connected by a path passing through no other dots or letters, and different letters may not be connected. All dots and letters must be used by the loop. A 180° angle at a vertex is allowed in this quadrant. The loop may intersect itself in this quadrant, but ONLY at right angles. (Colouring is for cosmetic purposes only.)
• The top right quadrant is Keima Loop: Every loop vertex in this quadrant must be at a star. Pass through all stars, using only edges that are knight moves. A 180° angle at a vertex is allowed in this quadrant, but the loop may not intersect itself in this quadrant. Note that any loop segment going into or out of this region must be a knight move as well.
• Bottom left quadrant is Total Omnidirectional Midloop: Pass through all dots, such that each dot is the midpoint of an edge. All dots are given. The loop is not allowed to have a 180° angle in this quadrant, nor may it intersect itself in this quadrant. (Note that any loop segment going into or out of this region must be clued with a dot.)
• Bottom right quadrant is Angle Loop: Every loop vertex in this quadrant must be at a clue and vice versa. A triangle indicates that the angle at that vertex is acute; a square, right; a pentagon, obtuse. The loop is not allowed to have a 180° angle in this quadrant, nor may it intersect itself in this quadrant.

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Another Secret Solver puzzle from Puzzlers Club; this time for 2020 and TheGreatEscaper. No solution or example is provided this time, because frankly I can't be bothered.

As with the previous one, I'm giving this a "hard" simply because two of these genres are novel, and non-orthogonal loops are generally not a thing people are fine with dealing with.

Special thanks to SoftFro for typesetting this in Tikz, and to montelucci, rand_yosh314, jkittykitkat, Jamie Hargrove, boboquack, Deusovi, and SoftFro once again for testing this.

Puzzle #23

   This is a Kurodoko puzzle.

Difficulty: hard

Theme: logical

Puzz.link link. 

Found this one deduction in a different puzzle, made a puzzle to properly exploit it. If you know what you're looking for, though, this is a breeze.

Puzzle #22

  This is a Masyu puzzle.

Difficulty: extreme

Theme: None

Puzz.link link. 

This was originally made to showcase one particular deduction, but I accidentally made it too hard and bashy while trying to remove cooks. Oops. Well, hopefully it's still not too bad...

Puzzle #21

 This is a Yajilin puzzle.

Difficulty: medium

Theme: No Blacks?

Puzz.link link. 

Inspired by two Yajilin puzzles on a similar theme by Twitter user @agnomy. There are two main ways people have found to get to the solution, and neither are that easy.

Puzzle #20

This is an Numbered Arrows Mashup Loop puzzle, an original mashup genre. Rules are given below the image.

Difficulty: hard

Theme: Secret Santa Gift for IHNN

PDF

Puzz.link (Note that the answer checking and clue colouring are nonexistent here, since this merely uses the Yajilin interface.)

Rules: Draw a loop through non-clue cells and shade the unused cells. Shaded cells may not be orthogonally adjacent (as in Yajilin). Each arrowed clue has a “line of sight” in the given direction, up until the edge of the grid. In addition, each quadrant's clues behave differently:

• Clues in the top-left quadrant are Yajilin clues; they indicate the number of shaded cells in the clue's line of sight.
• Clues in the top-right are Castle Wall clues; they indicate the total length of the loop segments along that clue's line of sight.
• Clues in the bottom-left quadrant are Slalom Count clues; they indicate the number of times the loop passes straight across the line of sight of the clue without turning. (Note that this type of clue does NOT count occurrences of the loop passing through the line of sight when turning, and that the loop is allowed to behave in this way regardless.)
• Clues in the bottom-right quadrant are First Seen Geradeweg clues; they indicate the length of the first-seen loop segment; if the first-seen cell used by the loop is a corner, both segments incident to that corner must be of that length.

(The small images around the puzzle are to remind you what each clue does.)

Below is an example and its solution:

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I actually constructed this one for Puzzlers Club's annual Secret Solver event last year and only just got around to posting it now. Secret Solver is our version of Secret Santa, wherein everyone participating writes a puzzle for someone else. In this case, I had to write a puzzle for IHNN.

A full walkthrough and writeup can be seen here (but please don't read it until you've at least had a good crack at the puzzle). Many thanks to SoftFro for creating the images and PDF.

Even though, having constructed it, I think it's a medium, I'm rating it as "hard" just in case, and in part due to the fact that two of these genres are novel.

Anyway, I should probably get around to porting most of my puzzles to this blog (except maybe the ones I'm submitting elsewhere?). I've been constructing puzzles occasionally for the last 6 or so years, so I *should* have a pretty reasonable backlog. (Then again, a ton of them are "easy" by my standards and I don't necessarily want to flood the blog with them...)

Puzzle #19

This is a Look-Air puzzle.

Difficulty: easy

Theme: Algorithmically Generated

Puzz.link link. 

Puzzlers Club has recently been experimenting with generating puzzles via the simple algorithm of "place a clue in the first spot where it can go, then repeat". Here's a Look-Air generated by placing a "2" in the first cell in reading order that could contain one legally (and which would give information).

Puzzle #18

This is a Heyawake puzzle. 

Difficulty: extreme

Theme: Filled Empty Space

Puzz.link link. 

Recently learned about an advanced Heyawake deduction. Here's my take on it. In addition, this puzzle requires bashing (or some deduction I haven't figured out yet). That's why this puzzle merits an "extreme" rating and not merely a "hard" rating. You have been warned.

Many thanks to rob and Freddie Hand for proving this unique.

Puzzle #17

This is a Castle Wall puzzle. 

Difficulty: medium

Theme: Logical

Puzz.link link. 

Just a puzzle I decided to make, using a Castle Wall deduction I don't seem to see too often. In general, I find that most Castle Walls available tend to use only deductions I consider "easy", so hopefully this will introduce you to a deduction you might not have known. Then again, given who likely reads this blog, I'm guessing that most of you already do know this deduction...

Rules link is to MellowMelon's blog; he created this puzzle genre. I'm sure there's MUCH more potential in this genre than the deductions I already know of and have seen elsewhere, though.

Puzzle #16

This is a Cipher Hashiwokakero puzzle, a variant of Hashiwokakero. In addition to the rules of Hashiwokakero, each number has been replaced by a letter. Different letters refer to different numbers, and the same letters refer to the same number.

Difficulty: medium (not actually an Evil Zinger)

Theme: Bridge X-tension

Puzz.link link. (Note: Because Puz-PRE does not use letters in Hashiwokakero, all Xs in the puzzle have been replaced by blank islands in the link. Puz-PRE does not have the "same letters refer to the same clues" constraint programmed in, so the solver may mark incorrect answers as correct.)

Puzz.link does not support letters in Hashiwokakero, I had to manually add all the Xs in Paint.NET.

So yeah, this puzzle isn't quite as EZ as a normal Evil Zinger as I would have liked. Shame.

Puzzle #15

This is a Masyu puzzle.

Difficulty: medium

Theme: Logical

Puzz.link link.

Have a Masyu puzzle I constructed on request from an acquaintance. No clue how often I'll keep updating this blog, but I think I have something for here that I should probably post at some point.

Puzzle #14

This is a Double Choco puzzle. I can't be bothered to write rules pages for every single genre that I come across any more, so the rules are below.

Difficulty: hard

Theme: Valentine's Day

Puzz.link link.

Divide the grid along the grid lines into orthogonally-connected regions. Each region should have exactly one grey half and exactly one white half; each half-region should be orthogonally connected, and the two halves should be exactly congruent. Numbers indicate the size of the half-region containing them; a region can have zero, one, two, or more numbers inside it.

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Apparently Japanese Puzzle Twitter is making a bunch of these for Valentine's Day, so I thought I'd join in the fun. However, the latter half of the puzzle was difficult to finish off and I ended up enlisting the help of Puzzlers Club. Thanks to ManyPinkHats for coming up with a good end. It's still quite casebashy, though, so you have been warned.

Puzzle #13

This is a Go puzzle.

Oh wait no, it's actually a Masyu. (Click on image to get a Masyu grid. With hope, this will work, though I'm not immediately sure as Blogspot's "Preview" option doesn't allow you to click on links.)

Difficulty: hard

Theme: White Wins

Puz-PRE link.

I made a joke when watching someone stream Go (aka Baduk, aka Weiqi), about Go positions actually being Masyu positions. Several weeks later, the idea was still bobbing around in my head, so I made this weird puzzle to go in a post on /r/badukshitposting. It also involves repeated application of a trick that should be known to all intermediate/advanced Masyu solvers.

(To save you unnecessary checking, there are no "3-white-circles-in-a-row" configurations in this position.)

Puzzle #12

This is a The Witness puzzle-- Hey, someone's peeled all the stickers off this one!

Difficulty: Medium

Theme: Solvable

The Windmill link (Note: Due to the nature of this puzzle, you will have to input the polyominoes yourself.)

Just something I came up with this morning. Hopefully it's enjoyable and sufficiently within the spirit of the game.

Hunt Puzzle #2: Deceptive Diagramless

This is not a logic puzzle. Yes, I've jumped the shark again (for another post).

Note: You will probably want some form of graph paper, square paper, crossword-constructing program, spreadsheet software, or some tool for inputting things into a grid to solve this. Some blank 25x25 grids are provided with the PDF download, but this does not imply that the size of the grid is 25x25; the size of the grid is for the solver to determine.

The final answer is a single word, thematic to the puzzle.

Difficulty: Hard

Theme: (To be discovered while solving.)

ERRATUM: At 19/04/2018, 08:33, the clues 17A, 34A and 1D were amended, as an earlier version of the puzzle was uploaded by accident. The PDF has been updated to match. Your progress should not have been affected.

PDF download here.

ACROSS:
1 Make dark mountain hold deficiency
4 Environment Secretary meeting with nurse, or politician?
7 Save money for a radio
9 Papers for chart in steel amalgamate
10 I taunt lad; it breaks down, feeling related
11 Enrage badly, without end!
12 Boba to wiretap iocaine smuggler
14 Laved due, unfortunately, went down in price
15 Froth from sclera fluid
17 Poetry menace Cyril
18 Opening found in print roller
20 Reminder of right speed, in hindsight
22 Snitches, captured: point values?
24 Later, behind protections
26 Repairs what we hear mongrel destroys
27 Chaos from left changing direction, amidst yen collapse
29 Hero-destroyed clothing: wear it
30 For example, Snapchat collage? Ideal mosaic! (2 wds)
32 Incorrectly label ricin as "glitter"
34 Outlines of pruned shrubs
35 Repeating without one answering
36 Tool on German submarine? Silent? Worrisome

DOWN:
1 Two nibbles by the heartless
2 Speed up treacle ace? Difficult
3 Student ran tirelessly, hid contestant
4 Germanic people, rating, shot wildly
5 Unpredictably, Eric ate rodent companion
6 Circuit's gate with some data
7 King or Queen in mix-up, slain? That's murder, for one (2 wds)
8 Foreshadowed queen of the gods led five-hundred within
11 Newer hay, tossed around, is in every place
13 Phone a friend who's a clown, maybe?
14 Sensitive operator #99 had lunch, for example
16 Draws anti-tank plots
19 The Reverend reports a patchwork car near the pavement
21 Understands rises
23 Basically, the Spanish sent me all year
24 Chocolate bar's ultra-erotic contents
25 Large pipes swat airmen in battle (2 wds)
26 Comforted criminal put bottom on shoe
28 Cry loudly, "Why, behead the moral traitor!" (2 wds)
31 Length of weather office's reply
32 Radical type's second organization?
33 Prison square

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Exams are coming up in a month (again), so expect what little output there is now to dwindle (again). Hopefully I can get back to making more puzzles afterwards (but don't count on it, again).

Yes, I just copy-pasted most of this from the previous Hunt Puzzle. :P

Puzzle #11

This is a Ciphered Clue Tapa puzzle, a variant of Tapa. In addition to the rules of Tapa, each clue has been replaced by a letter. Different letters refer to different clues, and the same letters refer to the same clues. (Note that a clue may be composed of multiple numbers, unlike in regular Cipher Tapa where each letter corresponds to a single number.)

Difficulty: Evil Zinger

Theme: The most X-hausting Ciphered Clue Tapa ever!

Puz-PRE link. (Note: Because Puz-PRE does not use letters in Tapa, all Xs in the puzzle have been replaced by question marks in the link. Puz-PRE interprets "?" as meaning "a single number", and does not have the "same letters refer to the same clues" constraint programmed in, so the solver may mark incorrect answers as correct and correct answers as incorrect.)

Because Puz-PRE does not use letters in Tapa, I had to manually go in and edit all the ?s into Xs. Bleugh.

Anyway, as with my previous Evil Zinger, I don't blame you if you've stopped trying after 10 seconds. Remember to prove uniqueness!

Rules of Tapa

Shade some empty cells (at least one) such that:

1. All shaded cells are orthogonally connected.
2. No 2x2 block of cells is entirely shaded.
3. Numbers indicate the length of consecutive shaded blocks in the 8 neighbouring cells. (For instance, a "2 2 1" clue indicates that in the 8 cells surrounding the clue, there is a block of 2 consecutive shaded cells, a block of 2 consecutive shaded cells, and a block of 1 consecutive shaded cell, with blocks being separated from each other by empty cells.)

Below is an example and its answer.

Puzzle #10

This is a Quadrant Clue Placement Masyu puzzle, a variant of Masyu. In addition to the rules of Masyu, within each quadrant, add the corresponding given 3x2 arrangement of clues, given at right. Blank squares within the arrangement must lie within the quadrant, and should be treated as "transparent" in that if they overlap an existing clue, the existing clue continues to exist. Arrangements may NOT be rotated.

Difficulty: Medium

Theme: Two by Two

Puz-PRE link. (Note that this is a link to the editor, not the solver. This is so that you can add the clues yourself.)

So... I dreamt that I was solving a puzzle of this genre. Then I woke up halfway through solving and got really pissed off that I couldn't finish the job. So I got up and constructed this puzzle. (Turns out the puzzle I was solving in my dream was either a Liar Quadrant Placement Masyu puzzle, or I'd made some really stupid false deductions in my dream. Funny how my subconscious was able to determine that we'd need a ton of black circles in the arrangements to force things, but wasn't able to make good deductions?

This one probably has a bit more case-bashing than my puzzles usually do.

Puzzle #9

This is a Masyu puzzle.

Difficulty: trivial

Theme: Diagonal... Symmetry?!

Puz-PRE link.

Alright, so I took my Shindanmaker result a little too literally with "must have one line of symmetry". But it never said the line of symmetry had to go through the centre!

An alternate theme name I could have gone with is "Mostly-White Spade". But I think this current theme stands out best. :P

Puzzle #8

This is a Masyu puzzle.

Difficulty: trivial

Theme: Diagonal Antisymmetry

Puz-PRE link.

What's this? A simple Masyu puzzle for my first post in ages? Yes.

On Twitter right now, a few Japanese puzzlemakers are using a Shindanmaker to decide what puzzles to create. My task was to create an 8-by-8 Masyu that had givens with linear symmetry. Naturally, I decided to make one with antisymmetry because antisymmetric Masyus are considered beautiful.

And of course, I forgot about the size of the grid when making it. And it also turned out way easier than I'd have liked it. Ugh.

Oh well, I'm still posting it here for content because I still think it's a nice theme. Thanks go to mathgrant for helping me place a pair of givens to give a unique solution when I thought I'd run into something unfixable.

Hmm, the word "run" in "I thought I'd run into" could be in either past perfect tense or present conditional tense. Interesting.

Anyway, I think I'll post the 8x8 Masyu if I construct it. Which I hopefully will.

Hunt Puzzle #1

This is not a logic puzzle. Yes, I've jumped the shark (just for this one post). The final answer is a single word.

Difficulty: Medium

Theme: Anything Puzzler Media can do, I can do better!

PDF download here.

• A cure, mixed for a rocket
• Accidental smart
• Add two to ice container
• Against a part of a poem
• Aged eccentric's exclamation
• An algebra falsehood
• Attempt street meeting
• Be angry with half of triangle
• Be next to one; however...
• Copper search going from 2 to 8
• Crossdresser's "opposite part"
• Detailed tree confusion
• Endlessly diddled about!
• Endlessly walk through water glob
• Erodes alternative pass
• Even Seymour's bird
• Fail a second time? Careless!
• Grace, confused, entering A&E area
• Hash mag'd ENE e.g. KPvK
• Healing and processing, I calmed
• Hostile leaders of Iraq, Cambodia, and Yemen
• Imaginary friend put Al in distress
• Includes irritated dads
• Lunatic's ole' cat
• Make a mistake and boo Caesar
• Middle-Eastern whaling ship captain switches out head of harpoon, for reals
• Parasite digested leaf
• Pee jumps back; strange
• Planning and including partner
• Pod #12 rots sandwich
• Rear's after front part
• Recited poetry overdue
• Recruit's partially tan
• River cove opens up beginnings
• Ruth et al.'s sample letter
• Scientist's endless test lab
• Skins masks
• Sledge-hammered windowsills
• Soaked tweeds, ruined
• Study at regional advisory headquarters
• Uzi 'n' cannon to hide copper's partner for battery
• Walked around setter in street
• Weasley character goes back to a gate
• Wheeze in big aspen 
• Whole-some, I hear
• Without sex, start to cum with speed
• Wrecks head half and tail of common bird

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Exams are coming up in a month, so expect what little output there is now to dwindle. Hopefully I can get back to making more puzzles afterwards (but don't count on it).