Puzzle #691 - Variant Masyu Day!

It's Masyu da- I already made this joke. About two and a half months ago, a couple people in Puzzlers Club were making meme Masyu puzzles with the variant rule that circles didn't have to be visited, but any circle that was visited had to be satisfied. These were memes because the solution would frequently avoid touching any circles, sometimes even just being a simple 2x2.

So I made a much harder puzzle to show that this variant did not have to just be a meme. It was a bit of a struggle, though, since I decided to start making this on my phone and quickly regretted that decision.

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Puzzle #690 - Masyu Day!

It's Masyu day! Because any day can be Masyu day if you post a Masyu that day! (hi wolog)

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Okay, so the real context for this puzzle is somebody - this was so long ago I don't recall who - posed the idea of collaboratively making a Masyu puzzle where one person places the black pearls and then another makes the puzzle unique with white pearls. I wasn't sure it would work too well, but then I had the idea of trying that relay-style approach here to end up with a different kind of theme than I usually would, and ended up with this pretty neat puzzle.

Puzzles #655, #656 & #657 - IPC Extras (Yajilin, Masyu All Cells)

Like last year, I helped contribute to the Indian Puzzle Championship this year. If you're interested in seeing the rest of the set, including bonus puzzles, check the link for details on how.

I had a couple extra puzzles I made that weren't used for competition - two alternate Yajilin options I didn't offer (since I liked the one that was used to much for the slot), and an All Cells Masyu meant for round 2 - logical optimizers. It didn't fit the round theme that well and there was already a puzzle with a similar vibe, so instead you get it as just an All Cells Masyu puzzle. Yay!

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Puzzles #641, #642 & #643 - Almost Symmetric (Masyu)

About 3 months ago at this point, I got a bit obsessed with trying to make a non-trivial Masyu that was almost symmetric in its clue layout, but didn't solve symmetrically. The second puzzle I made was a small one based on a simple yet somewhat advanced idea.

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Another interpretation of the theme would be to have a symmetric clue layout with only a minor "blemish" from being fully symmetric. My third attempt - still posting out of order - ended up with two such pearls and a fill that got a little bit insane in the end.

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Ultimately though, I think my first attempt at this theme was the best. Definitely the hardest break-in of the three, and though the later stages are easier than the prior puzzle that's not really saying much.

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Thus concludes my backlog of unposted puzzles. With any luck, I'll have more queued and ready to go by the time you're reading this, but no promises!

Puzzle #571 - Outside the Box (Masyu)

I was in a call with some friends playing Viewfinder when one of them joked that they were going to make a non-unique Masyu in the game. So I made a unique Masyu puzzle.

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I started from the central ring (which makes a unique puzzle on its own on 2x2, 4x4 or 6x6) and then tried to find interesting ways to break up the pattern. I really like what I ended up finding here, especially in terms of logic. I really should make more puzzles with denser cluing like this, when the denser cluing has a good reason to be there...

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 #300 - Colorblind Loop

For my 300th puzzle (wow I made it to 300 yay!) on this blog, I'm sharing the second half of my secret solver gift for wen, called Colorblind Loop. It's inspired by Bram de Laat's Four Color Loop, where instead of using 4 loop genres with numbered rooms, I decided to go with 4 loop genres that use black and white symbols. The rules are a little lengthy but shouldn't be too hard to understand as it's mostly just 4 standard genres mashed together.

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Colorblind Loop: Draw a single non-intersecting loop orthogonally connecting cell centers. Each region obeys one of four constraints, to be determined during solving. Adjacent regions may not require the same constraint. (note that this means a region may satisfy multiple constraints, but only one will be required)

Constraint 1: Black and white circles obey Masyu rules.

Constraint 2: Black and white circles obey Balance Loop rules.

Constraint 3: This region obeys Moon or Sun rules. The region may only be visited once. During this visit, all circles of one color will be touched and all circles of the other color must not be used. Travelling around the full final loop, the color of the circle used in all regions with this constraint must alternate. (no such restriction applies to non-Moon or Sun regions)

Constraint 4: This region obeys Kuroshiro Loop rules. All cells in the region must be used. Any loop segment that enters this region must not turn between circles of the same color, and must turn exactly once between circles of different colors. (this includes visits to the region that do not touch any circles!) The loop may turn or travel straight freely on a circle.

I really like some of the things I managed to fit into this grid, both aesthetically and logically. Total construction and testing time on this was probably about 10 hours, which is a bit less than last year- though some of that was due to making errors last year, while this construction process was surprisingly error free!

Puzzles #296 - #299 - Not-So-Secret Solver (Masyu, Balance Loop, Moon or Sun, Kuroshiro Loop)

I participated in the Puzzlers Club Secret Solver event again this year, and this time was assigned wen (who I've seen have an account name of wen1now somewhere, though I can't remember where), someone who has made some pretty insane puzzles. I decided to break out an idea I'd had lying around for a while and successfully constructed it- but more on that tomorrow.

I had about a week left until the deadline and thought it'd be funny to send some vanilla puzzles first, framed like they were the entire gift. The "real" puzzle would then be an extra surprise after solving the rest. I'm not sure entirely how it went over, so I hope it was amusing and that the initial set of 4 wasn't disappointing! The link I originally sent can be found here and the rules for each of Masyu, Balance Loop, Moon or Sun and Kuroshiro Loop can be found on their links.

Happy solving!

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The Masyu didn't end up very challenging, as early on I decided to focus more on a fairly restricted aesthetic theme.

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Like with the Masyu, the Balance Loop aesthetic ended up driving much of the solve. Most of my effort went into resolving the right side uniquely! This is probably my favorite of these 4.

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This Moon or Sun was a fun challenge to construct- limiting placements in this genre takes some creative region stretching to make it work nicely.

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Kuroshiro Loop can take on a life of its own when constructing, especially when targeting an arrangement of givens that looks like something. I ran into a few situations where I needed a circle to be both colors simultaneously, but eventually found a nice way to change the N that resulted in a unique puzzle with a nice solve path.

Puzzle #290 - Christmasyu Part 2 (Masyu Medley)

This is the second part of my Christmas gift for my mom- a Masyu variation mashup. I'll copy the rules I gave in the pdf I printed after the puzzle.

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Each 8x8 subsection of the puzzle obeys the rules of one of the Masyu variants [in the previous post]. Standard Masyu rules apply in all subsections, and a summary of all rules follows below.
Alternating: For the circles within this subsection, the loop must alternate touching black and white circles. This restriction does not apply outside the subsection. As an example, the loop may touch a black circle in the subsection, a black circle outside it, and then a white circle inside. However, black in, white out, black in is invalid.
Standard: No additional rules.
Deformable: White circles in this subsection may be filled in and act like black circles instead.
All Cells: All cells in this subsection must be used.
Tetromino: Cells not used by the loop in this subsection should form tetrominos. Each of the 5 shapes (I, L, O, S and T) must appear exactly once. Unused cells across subregion boundaries do not count for this restriction.
Dynasty: Cells not used by the loop in this subsection may not be orthogonally adjacent. Unused cells across subregion boundaries do not count for this restriction.

Enjoy the puzzle! I really enjoyed putting this together and was extremely surprised that the lower left would work like that! The difficulty is mostly fairly low here, but since this was for my mom... that just makes it more accessible to everyone else, doesn't it? 😁

Puzzles #284 - #289 - Christmasyu Part 1 (Masyu Sampler)

For Christmas, I made some puzzles for my family! My mom enjoyed Masyu from Logic Puzzles 101, so I made her a set of relatively easy Masyu and variations. And a large puzzle using all of the variants in one, which you'll see tomorrow.

Standard Masyu

Standard Masyu rules apply, with no additional rules. I wanted to ease my mom back into the type with a very easy example, though it still turned out a bit easier than I wanted from uniquely specifying the outside. It served its purpose well.

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Alternating Masyu

The loop must alternate touching black circles and white circles. Antisymmetry alllllllmost worked here with a fun and fair solve- the corners break it. That said, the corners still made for a nice resolution and I like this puzzle.

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Deformable Masyu

White circles may be "deformed" by filling them in to create a black circle. This one is my favorite of the set purely due to the theme. My mom thought this variant was very mean but ended up solving it without too much trouble, as intended.

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All Cells Masyu

The loop must travel through every cell in the grid. Can you tell that I was more focused on aesthetic themes for these puzzles than intricate logic? I love how the top right corner ends up working out and flows here.

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Dynasty Masyu

Cells unused by the loop may not be adjacent. This variant proved much tougher to grasp than I anticipated, even if I thought most of the deductions were straightforward. The top left in particular was something that my mom struggled with seeing how it could even work, even though it largely doesn't use the variant.

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Tetromino Masyu

The cells left unused by the loop must form the indicated set of tetrominos. In this puzzle, the set is O, I, L, S. This puzzle gave me so much trouble to construct as placing circles would often render the puzzle unresolvable from that point, and even placing all the shapes wouldn't give a place where a circle could go. Eventually I found an extra black circle I could place that made the puzzle much nicer, thankfully.

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Puzzle #277 - Dividing Line (Nurikabe/Masyu)

I also submitted this second Nurikabe (like loop) and Masyu combination to GMP, but it was rejected on basis of type. Solve as a standard Masyu puzzle. Additionally, all connected groups of cells not on the loop must contain exactly one number, indicating the size of that group as in Nurikabe. The loop may not pass through numbers.

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I really, really like this construction- there's several steps I found really interesting while testing this puzzle, and of course the theme is striking.

Puzzle #196 - Exponential Hybrid (Masyukabe)

Man, it's been a little while since I created a hybrid of multiple genres- while brainstorming some variant puzzles I want to create, I hit on Masyu and Nurikabe and decided to construct it now rather than later. Solve as a standard Masyu puzzle. Additionally, all connected groups of cells not on the loop must contain exactly one number, indicating the size of that group as in Nurikabe. The loop may not pass through numbers.

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My current posting plan is one more pair of puzzles tomorrow, then a bit of a break until I can post my next puzzle duel construction, then puzzle #200. After that, the next 25 should all be variants and hybrids so I can focus on that area some more, and then I'll work in the puzzles from my upcoming contest on LMI (starting in about a month!). I should be able to reach 270 by the end of the year...

Puzzles #167 & #168 - White and Black (Masyu/Shirokuro Link)

It's been a while since I last constructed a puzzle chimera, and I've had a couple ideas for them bouncing around for a while that I've only just gotten around to start making. This one works as a Masyu and Shirokuro Link and unfortunately has a very small symmetry break. However, there's one logical step that I like quite a bit and attempting to fix the symmetry would sacrifice that, and so the puzzle lives on in its slightly flawed form.

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Puzzle #110 - Everything Must Go (Masyu)

A common Masyu variant is to require all cells in the grid to be part of the loop. So I decided to use that variant and make an anti-symmetric All Cells Masyu puzzle, because I'd sort of tried that constraint before without success and this felt like an easier way.

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Puzzle #109 - Tetromino Tower (Masyu)

Another day, another Masyu puzzle. As my entry for Logic Showcase 12, all pearls had to come in groups of 4 or 5. Originally, I tried making a puzzle from just the 12 pentominos once each, but had no success in finding a good arrangement. Then I tried a 10x10 with just S tetrominos with similar failings, but that puzzle turned into this once I added some other pieces and enlarged the grid. Unfortunately symmetry still broke and I couldn't fix it, but this puzzle has a very nice flow to it and placed 6th of 13.

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Puzzle #108 - White Snake (Masyu)

This is a Masyu puzzle. Probably easier than the last two. Sorry about the delay between posts, had to hold off on posting my Logic Showcase 12 entry.

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Puzzle #107 - Bandage (Masyu)

Logic Showcase 12 is upon us, and Puzzler's Club submitted a total of 13 Masyu puzzles where all pearls are in clusters of 4 or 5. This is not my entry, but instead a puzzle I made after entries closed to keep making these. I think I'm finally getting the hang of the type.

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Puzzle #106 - A Masyu Puzzle

This is a Masyu puzzle.

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It turns out these are actually quite difficult to make.