Puzzle #507 - Hindsight is 2020 (Product Cave)

Also in the "Hindsight" round I made a Product Cave using only the number 20, to hit both themes. I... don't really remember why I did this. The puzzle ended up being worth 30 points, which sounds about right to me. As a reminder, the rules are the same as standard Cave, except the number gives the product of the horizontally and vertically visible cells.

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Puzzles #505 & #506 - 24 Hour Doppelblocks

I also provided a Doppelblock puzzle (worth 60 points) and "filler" puzzle that went unused for the 2020 2023 24 Hour Puzzle Championship. I ended up resorting to some given digits in the main puzzle since I ran out of possible clues (lazy past me) but since it could stay on-theme and let me remove another clue, I liked it enough.

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Penpa used for the second image so the givens aren't green.

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Puzzle #504 - 24 Hour Puzzlers Club (Hebi)

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to contribute to the Puzzlers Club sets for the 24 Hour Puzzle Championship (full sets can be found here) in 2020. But, uh. We all know what happened in 2020, so the two round themes ("Hindsight" and "...is 2020") both turned out prettttttty appropriate, as the sets ended up getting used in 2023 instead.

I provided 4 puzzles, starting with this Hebi puzzle worth 30 points in the Hindsight round.

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Puzzles #501, #502 & #503 - Old Finds (Yajilin, LITS, & Nurikabe)

Despite my prior post looking to the future, I think this is a good time to look into the past. These 3 puzzles are some of the oldest I've ever made. Do they still hold up to my current standards? I think so - my standards haven't really changed but my ability to reach or exceed those standards has.

First up, a Yajilin. The more things change, the more they stay the same - I think I'd have been okay with this in Yajilin Yacht honestly.

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Second, a LITS puzzle with internal borders. At the time I didn't think twice about including these and I recall it sparked a discussion of whether this was a variant or not. I don't think it is, but it's also definitely separate from puzzles without using internal borders. Kind of a stylistic choice.

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Finally for today, I made a Rectangles Only Nurikabe (all unshaded areas must be rectangles). This was in response to someone - I don't remember who - making a No Rectangles Nurikabe, so I thought I'd try flipping it around. This is the less interesting variant of the two, though I think this is probably my favorite of these three puzzles. There's just something fun about it.

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Puzzle #500 - Against the Flow (Guide Arrow)

Let's bring back the larger than normal puzzle for a milestone, alright? Here's a 17x17 Guide Arrow to celebrate reaching the big 500. It's not my largest or most involved milestone puzzle, but you know what? It's not about upstaging myself or anything like that, it's about having a place to share the many puzzles I've made. I made it to 500 and I'm nowhere near done here - even just in my spreadsheet I have another 99 unposted puzzles - some of which are reserved for other projects, most of which aren't - and I have so many more ideas for things to create. You guys are a great community - here's to another 500 and beyond.

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Puzzle #499 - A Line Goes Through A Guide Arrow Reverse

After exploring some aesthetic themes, I wanted to take a stab at a logical theme for Guide Arrow. While I've definitely seen more involved logical themes since, I haven't seen one quite like this. I wouldn't be surprised if it exists though. I remember getting the key deductions rolling took me a lot of tinkering to get something I liked, and that I had to move the star in order to get the last corner to resolve uniquely without breaking symmetry or earlier deductions.

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Puzzle #498 - Truly Symmetric Again (Guide Arrow)

After my first overclued attempt at a symmetry themed Guide Arrow, I tried again on a larger grid. I don't remember much about what worked or didn't work when setting this up (as it would have been in early February yeah I've been sitting on these for a while) but I do remember being much, much happier with how this one solved. Less of a puzzle that just works and more of being a puzzle that just works, if you know what I'm getting at.

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Puzzle #497 - One of Each (Guide Arrow)

Another Guide Arrow theme someone (Space, according to my spreadsheet) tried to make was to use each arrow once on a 7x7. They couldn't quite get it to work when using a ? on top of that, so I took a stab at the theme and turned up this puzzle.

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Puzzle #496 - Symmetry (Guide Arrow)

Back when Guide Arrow was first added to puzz.link, a lot of us started toying with the genre. One of the first things I tried was to make a puzzle with truly symmetric clue placements, and ended up with this fairly easy puzzle to start out.

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Puzzle #495 - EZ? (Dominion)

As the final Yajilin Yacht gift puzzle for a friend, Ezra never actually requested anything! So I just went and made a Dominion puzzle since I could use that to theme it on his name. I got back that it was a good puzzle, but this one was definitely the puzzle from the reward set that has the least reason to exist. Ah well, it's a nice one anyway.

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Puzzle #494 - Topology! *handwaves* (Witness Puzzle)

Dawgup (also known as Kem) had a very weird and specific request. He wanted a "symmetry sound dot puzzle with real bird sounds". This is a kind of puzzle that appears in one area in The Witness, and a symmetry version of it exists on the expert difficulty of the randomizer. I... may have added an additional twist on top of anything that appears in The Witness, but it's the sort of thing that could definitely appear.

Sound Pattern

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Draw two rotationally symmetric lines starting at an S (start point) and ending an E (endpoint). These lines must pass through all hexagons (sound dots) in accordance with Witness rules.

A hint exists inside the 4x4 box on the right. The sound cues exist around the 4x4 box. A large note-taking workspace has been provided. (fill these areas in with another color of surface to reveal the hints/decoding).

I'm about 95% sure this is unique but it's always hard to be sure with topological deductions, especially with this puzzle.

Puzzle #493 - Wacky Variant Sudoku

Zimodo is more active than I am in the CTC Discord. This isn't really saying much as I just lurk there, but still. His Yajilin Yacht request was a "wacky variant sudoku" which stumped me for a while. I don't make a lot of Sudoku puzzles and I definitely don't experiment with variants much. Even the Christmas Tree Conundrum I made a year prior was just a bunch of single variants combined with other puzzle types.

Combined with other puzzle types... well, that was all the prompt I needed once I realized it. Why not make a Killer Sudoku where you have to find the cages, and all cages have to obey Fillomino rules? I needed to add some kropki pairs to get the puzzle started but the combination worked really nicely.

Full rules:

• Standard Sudoku rules apply - place the numbers 1-9 exactly once each into every row, column and 3x3 box. Additionally: 
• Divide the grid into killer cages containing 0 or 1 small numbers. Cages of the same size may not share an edge. Numbers may not repeat within a cage. If a cage has a number, then it gives the sum of all numbers placed in that cage.
• White dots separate numbers where one number is exactly one more than the other. Black dots separate numbers where one number is exactly double the other.

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I'm honestly kind of proud of this one. It's well outside my comfort zone, has a cool theme (check the numbers) and a nice solve path.

Puzzle #492 - Rever Theory (Heyawake)

This Heyawake puzzle I made for Rever contains no river theory. It does contain a river, though.

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What did you really expect from the Witness Randomizer community?

Also, Rever's initial thought for a request was to have someone unrelated come up with a prompt that we would both make a puzzle for, to see the divergence - that never materialized and I had this idea (and knew Rever had made a number of Heyawake puzzles) and while it's not what Rever would have ever come up with as a request, the puzzle was very much appreciated.

Puzzle #491 - Two For One Special (Tapa+Creek)

Parker (or Mr_ParK3r2) really likes a couple of puzzle types in particular. Creek because it's simple and fun, and Tapa because... I don't actually know why but who doesn't like a good Tapa puzzle? So I made a puzzle with both Creek and Tapa clues that must obey all rules of both puzzles. There's a couple things that this implies that I ensured were not required for the solve as I don't think Parker knows those puzzling tricks, so this one is definitely on the easier side.

Full rules: Shade some cells so all shaded cells are connected and all unshaded cells are connected. No 2x2 area may be entirely shaded. Clues inside cell centers give the lengths of all groups of shaded cells in the up to 8 cells surrounding them, and may not be shaded. Clues on vertices give the number of shaded cells in the up to 4 cells touching that vertex.

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Puzzle #490 - Baba is Akari

KF requested a Baba Akari. This I could do very easily. I added some extra walls to part of the puzzle to extend the logic a bit farther, as large open spaces can only do so much without being interrupted in Akari. It's Baba, what more do you want?

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edit: link added, because I missed that until Menderbug pointed it out

Puzzle #489 - Is it a Sloop? (Yajilin)

Evandar (who did the best of the Witness Randomizer community on Yajilin Yacht) requested at first a 10x10 Yajilin with the minimum number of clues. I shared an existing 3 clue as there are a couple of those, and got a second request of a "mostly 0 Yajilin". This wasn't exactly what Evandar requested, but he liked the trick I put in this puzzle so I count it as a win.

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Puzzle #488 - Dragon! (LITS)

I made this LITS puzzle for ADGOD, who had the most viewed replay during the contest for Yajilin 13. The story here is after a poor solve on puzzle 11, he thought he was out of contention for any good placement (which turned out to not be true) but ended up drawing some dragons. Since the solution check only cares about the loop... well, you get some fun pictures. Most didn't save into the replays but this one did.

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The first request was a Double Choco with a dragon-shaped layout, but that proved pretty unworkable. This might not be dragon shaped, but I told ADGOD to trust me and he was very pleased with this one in the end.

Puzzle #487 - Qurve Data

Also on the topic of Secret Solver, Eric Fox got a very delayed puzzle. So I whipped up a consolation Curve Data puzzle so he'd at least have something personalized to solve. I like making Curve Data now. Turns out all it really took was an understanding of how they work.

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Puzzle #486 - Masyu Rings

Funny story about this puzzle.

So for Secret Solver, I was assigned dylanamite. I made my set - SO MANY BEES - and sent it off around Christmas, as I always have. On the 28th, dylanamite messages me asking if I make logic puzzles, which duh of course I do (at this point he does not yet know I made SO MANY BEES). He asked if I had any spare puzzles, and at the time I did not. He said it was fine, but 9 minutes later I sent him this Masyu puzzle. He didn't find out I created SO MANY BEES until weeks later.

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Puzzle #485 - 2x2 Masyu

On Puzzlers Club, 2x2 Masyu is a bit of a meme. One of the times it came up I decided to take it a bit less literally - what if you drew a loop of 2x2s instead?

Draw a 2-cell wide loop through some cells and all circles. A black circle must be at a point where the loop turns, the loop must continue for 2 cells in both directions. A white circle must be at a point where the loop does not turn, and the loop must turn immediately on at least one side.

These rules are a bit hard to parse from just a description, so here's an example of 2 things that are the minimal extension from a circle, and 3 things that are not okay.

The black circle on the left contains a turn and extends twice in both directions. The black circle on the top is incorrect because it does not extend two cells from the turn in either direction.

The white circle on the left is correct because it doesn't turn on the circle. The middle white circle is incorrect because it turns on the circle. The rightmost white circle is incorrect because it doesn't turn at the first opportunity on one side.

With that out of the way, here's the puzzle!

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Puzzle #484 - Masyu

I made this Masyu puzzle even longer ago than yesterday's Kurodoko puzzle. I originally planned to submit it to GMPuzzles, but between the posting freeze they went on and my own lazily on typesetting it to their format, as well as wanting this puzzle to see the light of day sooner rather than later (ironic, given the 8-9 month delay) I elected to queue it up here.

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Puzzle #483 - Just 4 Fun (Kurodoko)

I'm back.

Sorry about the 5 months of inactivity, I had always intended to post my modest backlog of puzzles after Secret Solver (you'll see why) and also wanted to have a small series leading up to puzzle 500. And as part of that leadup, I had wanted to share the puzzles I made for friends who participated in Yajilin Yacht. Yes. That Yajilin Yacht from July/August last year. I kept getting sidetracked but I'd already made the plan and I elected to stick to it, because how long would making 5 more puzzles take? How long would making 3 more take? Apparently, the answer was months and months. Sorry guys, but I did at least get everything out, and now it's time to catch up.

I made this Kurodoko puzzle quite a while ago to show a fun deduction with 4s, and it seems like a pretty good puzzle to start back on.

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