Puzzles #443 & #444 - Eye of the Storm (Yajilin)

This was the 16th and final Yajilin puzzle from my somewhat recent LMI contest, Yajilin Yacht. A solution video for the contest puzzle can be found on the contest page. Additionally, I've included the original version of the final puzzle (no link for it as it's the same puzzle with 3 clues removed) and an antisymmetric puzzle that took me 10 minutes to testsolve logically that I rejected completely from the contest for being too hard as a bonus puzzle.

puzz.link interface

This puzzle was the culmination of the entire contest up to this point. The break-in both relies on a single clue to confer any information, and also is definitively the most involved break-in of the contest. The rest of the solve utilizes so many techniques and has its own tricky steps throughout, keeping the feel of the puzzle fairly consistent even after that wall. Like Subdivision back at puzzle 12, it's a difficulty spike but unlike that puzzle, as the final boss of Yajilin Yacht that difficulty is earned. Only 156 people solved this beast during the contest, with 95 DNFs. I believe this is the highest DNF percentage in any daily contest and one of the lowest solve counts, behind only some early Tapa and Voxas puzzles from before the daily contests took off. And yet? The quality rating was one of the higher from Yajilin Yacht, while the closest comparison for DNF rate (the 1234 Voxas) has one of the lowest quality ratings from any daily contest. It's a brutal puzzle that solvers who persevered through it felt rewarded for their effort.

And really, that's all I wanted. For the contest as a whole I wanted to make some puzzles I was proud of, solvers to learn some things about Yajilin, and for people to feel like their time was well spent. I feel that I succeeded on all 3 of those goals.

Anyway here's a buffed version of the hardest contest puzzle with just 3 clues removed. I kind of prefer this version honestly, but wanted to nerf it for the contest.

puzz.link interface

And finally, here's an antisymmetric puzzle with a similar idea that's extremely hard to solve rigorously. I'm a little sad that I didn't get to include an antisymmetric puzzle in Yajilin Yacht itself as a result of cutting this one. It really didn't fit with the rest of what I was going for, so into the bonus pile it went.

That's all the Yajilin puzzles for now! Just kidding, I contributed some puzzles to the 2022 Indian Puzzle Championship, which had a round with the puzzle types from the daily contests. And of course, I grabbed the Yajilin spots :)