Goodbye Perplexible!

I finally made a puzzle blog of my own. You can find it here: http://tspuzzles.wordpress.com/

I’ll be posting my puzzles mainly there from now on, but I might post one here every now and then.

Also, thank you Dave Miller for letting me in here in the first place.

See you!

Arrow Inequality Odd Even Skycraper Shape Sudoku

Interested in the camaraderie of solving the daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper, but hate words and love numbers? There’s a Facebook group for you.

Every day, The League of Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen features a sudoku variant from one of a wide variety of talented sudoku authors around the world. Variants include simple changes to shapes and groups, non-standard clue types, and the occasional mathematics concept thrown into the mix.

Unable to leave well enough alone, my last puzzle for the group included a wide variety of clue types. Shaded cells are even digits, plain cells are odd digits. Circle cells are the sum of the digits along their arrows. Numbers outside the grid are skyscraper clues.

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Word has it you can solve it without the skyscraper clues, but they certainly make it easier.

Outside Nurikabe

This is already the fourth one of these I’ve made, which I consider a feat given how many of my puzzles tend to be one-shot variations.

Outside Clue Nurikabe 4

Rules:

  • Unlike in regular Nurikabe, the clue numbers have been placed outside the grid.
  • A clue will appear in the first unshaded cell in its row/column, counting from the clue’s direction.
  • Standard Nurikabe rules then apply:
    • Shade some cells to form a continuous wall that contains no 2×2 squares of shaded cells.
    • The clue numbers hint at connected groups of unshaded cells.
    • Every group has exactly one clue, which tells the group’s size.

Pearl Pentominous

I’ve been wanting to make a Pentominous puzzle for a while, and this is the result. The puzzle has a shift in difficulty towards the end, and that’s because I wanted to stick to the theme, and got bored searching through the alternatives. I like it as it is, though.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this variant already has a name, if so please tell me in the comments.

Pearl Pentominous 1

Rules:

  • Divide the grid into pentominoes (continuous shapes made out of five cells).
  • No two pentominoes of the same shape may share an edge (even if they’re mirrored copies of each other), but touching by corners is allowed.
  • Every pentomino must contain exactly one pearl.

Kuromasu Yajilin

This one is a hybrid of Yajilin and Kuromasu (aka Kurodoko). It ended up a bit odd (the first iteration turned out to be broken, and fixing it altered the solving path), but I like it. Reminds me of my Crypto Regional Yajilin, actually.

Kuromasu Yajilin 1

Rules:

  • Draw a loop passing through some of the cells, and shade the unvisited cells. The loop passes through the centers of cells, and makes right-angled turns.
  • Two shaded cells may not share an edge, but touching by corners is allowed.
  • A clue tells the total amount of consecutive horizontally or vertically connected unshaded cells (visited by the loop) connecting to the clue, counting the clue cell as well. Clue cells may not be shaded.

Put more concisely, it’s a Yajilin with Kuromasu clues (but the loop must visit all clue cells as well). This picture should clarify the cell counting rule:

kuromasu visual

EDIT: Clarified the rules. Unlike in Yajilin, the loop must visit all the clue cells as well, they may not be shaded.