Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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.

Corrupt Sudoku 1

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.

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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.

Crypto Regional Yajilin 1 final

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.

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

Balance Quest (BQ) puzzles are like jigsaw puzzles, but using numbers instead of pieces.  I’ve designed them for players who enjoy recreational math and logic puzzles like Sudoku.

bqjpgpuzzle                       bqjpgsol

Original Printable Puzzles                                                                                                          Solution

 

bq16_2d                      bq32_2d

Lucky Charm Puzzles for Kids                                                                                            Flower Petal Puzzles

bq16                                bq64

Simple, yet challenging Puzzles                                                                                         Gargantuan Puzzles

 

 

Pyramid                        Scaffold

                                Pyramid Puzzles                                                                                        Scaffold Puzzles

 

Below are my two newest BQ puzzle types as of 10/15/14:

s_checkerboard                        l_checkerboard

Checkerboards

 

Pinwheel image

Pinwheel Checkerboards

 

Puzzle Rules:

  • Using simple addition, fill in each blank cell, based on the sum of the half-sized cells next to it.
  • The darker cells on the edges must contain every number from -16 to 16 (or for smaller puzzles -8 to 8), except zero, with each number appearing only once.
  • Leave no duplicate numbers in the light-colored cells or in the darker cells.

There is one unique solution.

(Up to four difficulty levels are available)

Puzzle related links:

Play the Puzzle Live on Puzzle Baron

Windows 8.1 Puzzle App

BLOGSPOT and Book Orders

Instructions Video

BQ on Facebook

Update as of 12/5/14:

Thanks to Auspac Media for introducing the Interactive Checkerboard puzzles in Australia.

 

Update as of 11/29/14:

Thanks, Kim, for your posts of the Checkerboard puzzles on “Puzzle to Print”.

Update as of 11/24/14:

Thanks, Doug, for posting the Checkerboard Puzzles on “Printable Puzzles” site.

 

Update as of 10/2/14:

The Windows 8.1 app is now available in the Windows store.  Thanks to Cameron Stair for helping to make this project possible.

 

Update as of 8/4/14:

Jim

Update as of 7/8/14:

“Great puzzles, we like them very much”.

Margret at Auspac Media, Australia

     Thanks for featuring them and hope Aussies enjoy playing Balance Quest also…

 

 Update as of 1/10/14:

Stephen, thanks for your very positive comment.  I have quoted you below:

“Balance Quest has a fairly prominent position on our “Puzzles” page on that site, a larger number of LP users are clicking over to try BQ.  (LP.org is now our biggest traffic source for BQ.)”

By the way, your redesigned site, logic-puzzles.org is beautiful and now has a wide selection of logic puzzles for those interested in playing.

 

Update as of 11/29/13:

Mr. P. , you have a great math and puzzle site.  I hope your guests will enjoy playing a few BQ puzzles. Thanks for linking and posting a few sample puzzles:

 

Update as of 11/22/13:

Doug, your site, “Memory-improvement-tips.com” is the best.  Thanks for the nice
write-up and for including BQ on both of your BLOGS:

Update as of 11/21/13:
Best wishes to Kim at “Puzzles-to-print.com” for posting her BQ page.

 

Update as of 11/20/13

Thanks, Dave Fisher at “puzzles.about.com” for this sweet review of BQ:

 

Thanks Erik @ “Math in English” for your nice write up.

Thanks for linking from from “The Math Form” @ Drexel University

 

 

Detailed Instructions and Sample Puzzles:

bq-large-puzzle-instructions0001bq-large-puzzle-instructions0002bq-small-puzzle-instructions0001bq-small-puzzle-instructions0002large0001large-sol0001small0001small-sol0001



Create Your Badge

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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.

Mystery Tapa 1

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.

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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

Clouds 1

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*

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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.

Easy As Skyscrapers v3

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.

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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

Liar Futoshiki 1

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.

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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.

Hall Of Mirrors 1

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.

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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.

Snail 1

Snail 2

Snail 3

 

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.

Snail 4

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.

Archive for the ‘Puzzle’ Category:

Corrupt Sudoku

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.

star tour 1

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.

star tour 2

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