Puzzle #100 - Happy New Year! (Fillomino)

Let's get right to today's Fillomino puzzle.

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Puzzle #99 - Tri-Place (0)

Almost to 2020, can you believe it? This year just flew by- can't wait to see what amazing puzzles next year holds, and I'm also really hoping to do much better at speedsolving. I'm beating some really experienced solvers sometimes when comparing semi-casual times, so maybe I'll actually finish one of those tests at some point.

Anyway, onwards to the puzzle, a Tri-Place. It's a very, very rare puzzle type- not even 10 examples out in the wild, that I could find. For only 0 as a given, this one immediately jumped to mind- zeroes don't give much, but they should give enough to have an interesting solution. I hope you agree.

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Puzzle #98 - Tapa (1)

Tapa is a good genre. It's also very common, but less so in the database. I'm running out of things to say.

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Puzzle #97 - Yajilin (2)

Yajilin is the most common puzzle type on puzz.link. There's even quite a few with this sort of theme. Not that saturation is going to stop me from making these if I want to!

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Puzzle #96 - Fivecells (3)

Time for a throwback to the first 3 puzzles I posted here, which were FiveCells puzzles. I really enjoy this type and the addition of invalid cells (for non-standard grid shapes) makes for a lot of fun potential.

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Yes, it's in the shape of a 3. I've solved a couple 3 only FiveCells before, but they were all on rectangular grids.

Puzzle #95 - Herugolf (4)

It's time for a moving puzzle on the blog- a Herugolf! I don't know how to make these as interesting as some other puzzles.

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Puzzle #94 - Cave (5)

I made this Cave back when I made the other ones, mostly to see if I could make an interesting Cave from only one number. This is the puzzle that started this whole series.

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Puzzles #92 & #93 - Nurikabe (6)

Two Nurikabe puzzles today- both good attempts at this theme, but one is much, much better. Spoilers: it's the bigger one. Merry Christmas to any solvers checking this out :)

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Puzzle #91 - Sashigane (7)

Compared to the last few Sashigane puzzles here, this one is much easier.

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Puzzle #90 - Kurotto (8)

Who honestly expected to see Kurotto in here? I wasn't even sure if this construction would be possible until I really started thinking about it, at which point I determined 8 was plausible.

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Puzzle #89 - Tasquare (9)

Tasquare isn't even the most obscure type I'm breaking out for this little series. It was very difficult to make this puzzle under the restriction, but overall it was a reasonable process and this is definitely a type I want to make more of.

You know, like every single type ever.

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This grid shape isn't too weird, is it?

Puzzle #88 - Country Road (10)

Technically, this Country Road puzzle is a variant in that the rules normally require visiting every room, while this puzzle trivially can't.

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I really liked making this one.

Puzzle #87 - Nanro (11)

Yes, you read that right. This is a Nanro puzzle that only gives the number 11 in the grid. And only 1, to boot.

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Bonus content: This scrapped puzzle that was almost the original version of this one. Unfortunately, I made a bad deduction and the given 2 wasn't forced, and there was no way to keep that chain of logic intact under the theme.

Puzzle #86 - Shikaku (12)

Welcome, dear readers, to the themed set of 13 puzzles I mentioned last week. One puzzle a day until the new year, each using the number of days (minus one) as the sole number given in the grid, and each being a different puzzle type. Well, Christmas gets 2 puzzles, but I have a good reason for that.

Today's puzzle is, as the title says, a Shikaku that only uses the number 12. This was much easier to make than I expected it to be!

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Puzzle #85 - Loop and Shading? (Slitherlink)

This is not a Slitherlink puzzle. At least, not a normal one. This is a SLITSerlink puzzle. What's the difference? It's very simple- follow all normal Slitherlink rules. Additionally, the inside of the loop must be a valid LITS wall.

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This puzzle is very difficult and requires some lookahead at points, but taking into account both the Slitherlink and LITS style deductions in combination does give a solution path that does not require bifurcation at any point. Ended up being too hard and people did bifurcate to solve in the showcase, and I placed second to last :/ I really don't know what people like.

Puzzle #84 - Snowflake (Slitherlink)

Tis the season to try a bunch of things in the last corner in a solver to make sure I didn't mess up constructing, falalalala, lala la la. It's a Slitherlink.

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Puzzle #83 - Belt Loops (Slitherlink)

Slitherlink is one of the most well known puzzle types out there today, behind only the mainstream Sudoku and Kakuro. It was also completely impenetrable for me for months, until something finally clicked and I could start making deductions in the type. And not too long after that, Logic Showcase #11 (Slitherlink Variants) was started.

So I made a variant Slitherlink before I made a vanilla one and made two afterwards just for this blog.

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Puzzles #81 & #82 - Addendum to the Addendum (Sashigane)

Firstly, I'd like to thank Pavel Curtis for the opportunity to contribute to the Ænigmatic Addendum series. Well, it was an open offer to the Puzzler's Club server, and I just happened to be around at the time and have enough confidence in my constructing abilities to give it a shot. Looking over the available list of genres, Sashigane was the one I was most familiar with and, as a region division puzzle, I thought I had a reasonable shot at it.

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My first attempt is shown above- if you followed the first link to the page, you'd know that this was not the puzzle used for the Addendum. I had to make a second puzzle because this one was too easy, not helped by the fact that I wanted to force a deduction on the border with cells that must be used by non-border things to resolve it all late in the puzzle, but failed. I still learned a lot about how to fill a Sashigane in making this, though.

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I took the feedback on my first attempt to heart (too many arrows, adjacent clues give too much information) and worked very hard to avoid that, and also embed some intricate steps. One part of the puzzle resolves easier than I would have liked, but apparently it's also non-trivial so I suppose as the constructor, I knew what the placed clues were trying to make. I also had to make a small fix here before sending it off- I made a bad assumption about how the 9 had to resolve but fortunately could fix it easily enough, which is why you're seeing this now!

Fair warning, this is probably the hardest puzzle on this blog so far. I think I have a harder one coming in a few days, though.

Puzzle #80 - Antisymmetric S (Sashigane)

Antisymmetry is a fun theme. Sashigane is a fun genre. Let's combine them. This puzzle is probably a little easier than yesterday's, and I like the construction much more.

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Tomorrow you guys get 2 puzzles. :)

Puzzle #79 - Bolt From the Blue (Sashigane)

Today's Sashigane puzzle is an interesting one to me. Back near the start of this blog, I posted a 7x7 puzzle with 12 givens. This is a 10x10 puzzle with 14 givens, and much more interesting logic. Originally this would have been a 9x9 with a 9 clue in the middle, but I wasn't able to find a way to do what I wanted with that arrangement. Maybe someone else can manage that theme?

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Puzzle #78 - Rain (Cave)

I can't believe that the top left corner of this Cave puzzle works. It's definitely on the trickier side of Cave puzzles, at least from those that I've seen.

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Next up, one of my favorite types and a fun story.

Puzzle #77 - Square Numbers (Cave)

While I was making my Cave puzzles, I wanted to explore different styles for them. First, I made one with diagonally touching givens (to be posted tomorrow). Then I made this one with orthogonally touching givens, followed by yesterday's non-rotationally symmetric puzzle.

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Puzzle #76 - Moon Cave

And we're back! Unlike last time I started posting puzzles again, I actually have all (well, all but two) of this batch of 25 pre-made, mostly because the bulk of this pile is themed together. But you guys will see that in about a week and a half :)

Anyway, this is a Cave puzzle that I made to make an easier one. I've been slowly working through Colossal Cave Collection and as a result have gotten a much better understanding of the type, so these few will be much better than that first 7x7 I made.

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Who needs adjacent clues? Not me any more.