Puzzles #535, #536 & #537 - IPC 2023 Round 2 (Akichiwake, Symmarea)

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to construct puzzles for the Indian Puzzle Championship this year. Before getting into some of the puzzles I prepared, you can acquire the full set of puzzles at the link above. The IPC (and LMI, a phenomenal puzzling site) operate at a loss, so if you want to throw some support their way it would definitely be appreciated.

Round 2 is traditionally puzzles from the same categories as Puzzle Ramayan that year, but of different types. I picked Made In India (since Akichiwake was recently gaining prominence and it's a Prasanna invention) and Regions (since I like making region division). I started out by making the second puzzle here with a construction that got away from me, in the pursuit of a restrictive theme and layout. I then took that knowledge and used it to make another puzzle that also got away from me a bit, though since I started smaller the final puzzle ended up being much more reasonable, though still one of the harder puzzles in the round at 50/450 points.

puzz.link interface

puzz.link interface

For region division I went with a Symmarea because it's a fun type and I'd never made one before. It gave me a lot more trouble than I anticipated and I almost switched genres to something easier to make. I'm glad I persevered though, since I ended up with a really slick 90 point puzzle at the end of the process. Lesson learned, don't try a restrictive theme (cloned rings) for a first construction of a genre that dead-ends easily.
Over a month after the IPC, I realized there were two ways to resolve the last value. The original version of the puzzle is linked below - the image and first link are the fixed version, the second link is the original.

puzz.link interface

original, two solution version (penpa)