Puzzles #660 & #661 - More 24HPC Shading (Light and Shadow, Aquarium)

I also contributed several puzzles to the Puzzlers Club rounds at the 2024 24 Hour Puzzle Championship this year. We authored two rounds, each with 24 puzzles. The first round had one puzzle themed on each Greek letter, while the second round was a double zodiac (signs and animals).

I made my now-standard Light and Shadow for Lambda, after some research into what lambda was usually used to represent. Turns out it's often used for light, which provided justification for the genre pick. This one ended up being worth 60 points, which I think is pretty fair for the size. I remember being quite happy that the underside of the lambda was all question marks, which always provide some fun reachability options.

puzz.link interface

I also made an Aquarium for Rho with only row clues. Because I thought it would be funny. I did put some consideration into what genre with row/column clues would be a good pick, but nothing else seemed quite as promising. This puzzle tested pretty breezily at only 20 points, which is about what I was aiming for.

puzz.link interface

Puzzle #640 - Fourced (Light and Shadow)

Light and Shadow is still such a good puzzle type. I spent a while toying with this layout of 4s and trying to find any good solution for several white layouts, with all white clues being question marks, before finally finding one. The first version was super bashy and I wasn't going to share the puzzle widely, but something compelled me to keep tweaking it and before long I actually did find a fair, albeit hard variant.

puzz.link interface

Also, these rules could potentially appear in Islands of Insight, which should launch about a week ago (I'm writing this on January 25th and may not update this space before it goes live). I've worked really hard on that game, especially the puzzle content for the past 3 years and I'm really, really excited for it to be out there for anyone to see.

Sometime around my birthday, I might post a collection of my favorite puzzles from the game. Regardless of your puzzle experience level, you won't be disappointed!

Puzzle #608 - Dark Ruins (Light and Shadow)

Before WPC 2023, I ran a Puzzle Getchu!, a contest themed on Ape Escape. I had intended to queue these puzzles for posting before WPC, but didn't have the time. Better late than never!

The fifth level is Dark Ruins, another sprawling level. The connection here is pretty obvious - Light and Shadow means there's darkness, and so I went with a "dark ruin" aesthetic. There was a time I was considering Nurimaze for this slot and a few other genres that never went beyond "maybe, but nahhh". It kind of had to be Light and Shadow - I have a strong affinity with this type. 10 points is also potentially slightly undervalued, as tests put it at about 12 points and I "had" to round down.

puzz.link interface

Puzzle #563 - Continuing a Trend (Light and Shadow)

This Light and Shadow puzzle actually continued three trends. One, me making Light and Shadow puzzles because they're fun. Two, Rever made a bunch of puzzles with this clue layout in a variety of types which were pretty neat. Three, while hanging out with both Rever and jkitty in VC we started toying with other genres for this layout and, since Light and Shadow had been a recent thing to try, jkitty tried and didn't think it would work too well. So I took a stab at it and made this in about 5 minutes. To be fair, though, I'd already made the previous 5 puzzles which really helped pinpoint a potential starting point, and I did get a bit lucky with the ending working within the constraints of the start.

puzz.link interface

If this post goes up and there's not a link to Rever's puzzles with the same layout then remind me to link it or bug them to archive their puzzles somewhere already they're too nice to lose to the harsh void of time.

Puzzles #561 & #562 - The Compromise and The Uncompromising (Light and Shadow)

Here are two Light and Shadow I made, one compromising on the theme (6 and ? antisymmetry) and one where I didn't (the only white clues being the six 7s in a hexagon). The latter puzzle is probably the best Light and Shadow I've ever made and I put a lot of effort into both finding a novel (to me) break-in with the layout, and ensuring the rest of the fill didn't trivialize it along the way. As often happens, I later found that my start would render the end unworkable, but by tweaking the start slightly in a way that expanded the logic I could affect the later parts to give new options that did end up working out.

puzz.link interface

puzz.link interface

Puzzles #558, #559 & #560 - Light and Shadow

In hanging out in VC with jkittykitkat in the days after the Logic Puzzle Open, a topic of what genres should be made more came up. I suggested Light and Shadow and then there were suddenly some 5x5 puzzles using question mark clues. So... I decided to take a stab at using them myself, and with antisymmetric placements of a given value of one color and a question mark of the other. I quickly found a 5x5 with three 3s almost worked, and then a 6x6 with four 4s did. 7x7 with five 5s felt extremely possible but it took me quite a while to find a layout that did. I tried continuing the pattern farther but 6s proved a bit untenable, though you'll see that tomorrow.

puzz.link interface

puzz.link interface

puzz.link interface

Puzz.link update!

So, puzz.link updated today to import around 40 new genres from pzprxs! I've made puzzles in a few of these genres before, and took the time to go back and update the old no solution check variant links I had with full links. The penpa links provided still exist and I haven't switched out any of the images, just links. For completions' sake I'm reposting those puzzles below - if you've solved my blog up to this point, you've seen all of these before. If you're going backwards, you'll see all of these in the future.

If you're visiting from puzz.link/db? Hello! Enjoy the puzzles :)

Pentominous (previously appeared: #201, #335 - Logic Showcase 22, #308 - Pentomino Puzzle Pack. #317-#318)

https://puzz.link/p?pentominous/10/5/k7k7p7g7i7x7h

https://puzz.link/p?pentominous/7/5/h6r3gag5r1h

https://puzz.link/p?pentominous/9/9/y72ma0n1gcg8nb4m56y

https://puzz.link/p?pentominous/5/5/zk00080gg0

https://puzz.link/p?pentominous/10/10/zzzzz080gi14o1g000000000c006o03o00030o06c

Snake Pit (previously appeared: #156 - Typed Logic, #459)

https://puzz.link/p?snakepit/9/9/q8g6g4r2h3h4j3g3j5h6h2r4g5g7q0000001090a01390a0109030000

https://puzz.link/p?snakepit/10/10/s7i8j2g4h8m6h2j9i4j6i3j8h6m9h4g8j8i6si00ik102b6266007in0022626f036ii00i

Rassi Silai (previously appeared: #460)

https://puzz.link/p?rassi/25/7/4j1la977ak3eel888845mmm8bddd8miqq004e48s208g0uecpp44408000vg3002

Anglers (previously appeared: #246-#248 - Puzzle Zodiac)

https://puzz.link/p?anglers/6/6/n1m1h1m1z7cn9c

https://puzz.link/p?anglers/9/9/p1k1i1i1r1g1g1g1r1i1i1k1s9g9la77g7g6h96g6l7ai

https://puzz.link/p?anglers/10/10/i1m1i1q1h1w1h1w1h1q1i1m1m77n-14-14j66j99j99j55

Statue Park (previously appeared: #118-#121 - Logic Showcase 13)

https://puzz.link/p?statuepark/7/7/pa9061a0f700lg010//t

https://puzz.link/p?statuepark/9/9/632l009690n1f05ig0232007963/9/11g/12o/13s/22e/14u/23lg/22u/23mg/23eg

https://puzz.link/p?statuepark/13/10/o90ji00000000iaf9900000000ejogi00000000hkoq9//p

https://puzz.link/p?statuepark/11/11/0008006202600i06i000i006i000k260226020000/12/13s/22m/14u/23lg/23mg/15v/24lc/24lk/32ng/33ie/33j6/33ji

Light and Shadow (previously appeared: #159 - Typed Logic)

https://puzz.link/p?lightshadow/10/10/-18q9g-17w-17g-15zpcg-10w-16g-30q7

Puzzle #159 - Dark Type (Light and Shadow)

The Typed Logic puzzle competition on LMI just ended, and I contributed 5 puzzles to the set, representing Fighting, Poison, Ground, Dragon and Dark types.

Nobody on the constructing team seemed to have much idea what to do with Light and Shadow, myself included. So I decided to just try to make a fairly sparsely clued puzzle, and ended up hitting on an interesting consequence of the rules while toying with given placements that I subsequently built the puzzle around. This one was worth 50 points on the test.

puzz.link interface      penpa interface
old puzz.link interface

Thus concludes my contributions to Typed Logic. If you haven't already checked out the rest of the puzzles, I highly recommend them! The Stostone, Skyscrapers, Yajisan-Kazusan and Icebarn are especially well done, but I greatly enjoyed sitting down and giving the full booklet a testsolve once it was ready.

Stay tuned, because I also recently finished constructing puzzles for a contest of my own...