Perplexible

I haven’t seen this variant before, so I took the liberty of naming it. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else had already invented it, though.

Rules:

• Unlike regular Sudoku, numbers do repeat in rows, columns and regions.
• Each row contains exactly one number twice, but the doubled number is different in each row.
• Also, each row is missing exactly one number, but the missing number is different in each row.
• The same applies to columns and regions.

For an easier puzzle, change the 5 in the top row into a 1. It’s not that hard, but getting used to the logic probably makes it harder.

EDIT: Corrected the rules. The old rules weren’t strict enough to guarantee an unique solution.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 06/2/14 11:44 AM
No Comments »

I figured it’s been long enough since I last posted a puzzle here. I made this one sometime in the autumn, and revised it a few months ago. I quite like it.

The size is an odd 13×14 to accommodate the herringbone pattern running on the diagonal, and I wanted the clue positions in the pattern to be rotationally symmetric.

Rules:

• The clue numbers have been encrypted: same letters stand for the same number, different letters stand for different numbers.
• Decipher the numbers and solve the resulting Regional Yajilin:
  • Draw a loop passing through some of the cells. The loop passes through the centers of cells and turns orthogonally.
  • The clue number of a region tells how many unvisited cells there are in that region. An unclued region may have any number of unvisited cells.
  • Unvisited cells can’t be directly adjacent to each other, but touching by corners is fine.

Some bifurcation is needed.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 05/5/14 8:10 AM
1 Comment »

Welp. I was going to call this one Mystery Tapa but then I saw GMPuzzles’ Sunday Surprise posted yesterday. What a coincidence. I started making this one last Thursday, before knowing anything about any upcoming Sunday Surprises anywhere.

Rules:

• Regular Tapa rules apply.
• Question marks represent nonzero integers.
• Asterisks are wildcards: they represent a nonzero amount of question marks.
• No clue may appear multiple times, hence the name.

Gah, this puzzle took a lot of wrangling to make it work. I gave up on having a symmetric clue pattern.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 09/23/13 4:30 AM
2 Comments »

I think this might be my first entirely vanilla puzzle.  About time I made one instead of all the variants and hybrids.

It’s a Clouds aka Rain Clouds aka Radar puzzle. Oddly enough, I didn’t find any satisfactory sites explaining the rules.

Rules:

• Shade some cells to form rectangular clouds. The clouds don’t touch each other, even by corners.
• The numbers tell the amount of shaded cells in that row/column.
• A cloud must be at least two cells tall and wide: no 1×n or n×1 clouds allowed.

I find Clouds puzzles to be pretty hard, so I’m going to call this one pretty hard. Plus or minus a few arbitrary units of difficulty. *shrugs*

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 09/22/13 11:33 AM
No Comments »

This puzzle is probably on its 20th layout iteration, but I’m finally happy with the it. In the end I used less repeating adjacent clues than I intended, but at least I managed to get symmetrical clue placement.

Rules:

• Each clue is either a Skyscrapers clue, telling the number of skyscrapers it sees
• or an Easy As ABC clue, telling the first number it sees
• but not both.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 09/11/13 8:27 AM
No Comments »

It’s pretty much what it says in the title. I like this one.

Rules:

• Fill in the numbers 1-5 each row and column such that the inequalities hold.
• Additionally, every row and column has one liar cell. The inequalities involving these cells are false.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 08/18/13 2:10 PM
No Comments »

This is a puzzle I made about a month ago. It’s one of the few puzzles I feel I actually constructed, as opposed to just browsing the shelves of the Puzzle Library of Babel, trying layouts and seeing what works out.

I set out to make a harder version of Hitori. I’m not quite sure whether the puzzle successful or not, as it isn’t that hard. Adding blank cells as givens might improve the puzzle.

Rules:

• Place mirrors in some of the cells such that no two equal numbers see each other.
• The mirrors are right triangles such that the hypotenuse cuts a cell in half diagonally.
• A mirror in a cell doesn’t obscure the number it’s on: if the hypotenuse can be seen, the number can also be seen.
• As in Hitori, two cells with mirrors can’t be orthogonally adjacent, and the empty cells must form a single polyomino.

I hope I was clear with the rules.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 08/1/13 7:54 AM
No Comments »

Welp, haven’t made anything in a while. Anyways, I found these while going through my puzzle excels. There were more, but they were broken and I didn’t feel like fixing them.

I like using blank cells as givens with Snail puzzles.

EDIT: Here’s a 4th one. I wanted to make one with only blank givens, but couldn’t make a good enough puzzle yesterday. The tetromino theme is an added plus.

Rules:

• Fill in some numbers such that every number in the range (here 1 to 3) appears once in every row and column.
• Additionally, starting from the tail of the snail (the top-left corner) and following the spiral, the numbers must be in sequence: here 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, …
• Cells with • in them are blank.

The puzzles are in no particular order.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 07/26/13 3:47 PM
3 Comments »

I appear to be in the mood for Star Battle derivatives.

I haven’t seen this kind of puzzles anywhere else, so I named it “Star Tour”.  As weird as Star Battle, in my opinion.

Rules:

• Place two stars in every row and column such that no two stars touch each other, even by corners.
• The stars are numbered from 1 to 2n. Moving orthogonally from star to star in order must result in a loop that visits all stars. 2n loops back to 1.
• A number along the edge of the grid tells the number of the star first seen on that row/column.
• An arrow along the edge of the grid tells the direction where the next star in sequence is looking from the star first seen on that row/column.

The first one is rather easy, but the second one with the arrow clues is tricky.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 06/20/13 3:15 PM
No Comments »

It’s my 18th birthday! \o/

Today’s puzzle took some wrangling. I started with the regions spelling out ’18’ and spent a day trying to develop various puzzles around them (I tried to make another Tents & Trees, for example), but I didn’t really get anything done. The next day,  frustrated,  I was looking for puzzles to solve and stumbled upon Erich Friedmann’s Gap puzzles. They only added to my frustration, really, but I realized to try and make a puzzle using gap clues, and this came out in a few hours. I think I’ve seen Gap puzzles elsewhere, but can’t remember what they were called. Something something satellite something, or something.

Rules: A hybrid of Star Battle and Gap. Two stars in each row and column such that no two stars touch even by corners, two stars in each shaded region (the 1, the 8 and the two boxes inside the 8). Additionally, the clues outside the grid tell the gap between the two stars on that row/column. The crossed out cell is blank.

I’m not happy at all having to cross out a cell, but the rest of the puzzle turned out so nice that I let it pass. That, and desperation to get at least a puzzle done in time. It’s pretty easy, but I really like it.

In other news, I’ll be ordering this book as a gift to myself. Hopefully it’ll help improve the quality of my puzzles.

Posted in Puzzle by ArDeeJ, 06/18/13 9:00 AM
No Comments »