Puzzles #530, #531 & #532 - So Many Bees Part 8

For secret solver last year, I was assigned to write a puzzle for dylanamite. I did not write a puzzle, I wrote a 26 puzzle set that I'll be posting the full PDF for tomorrow. When Jamie signed Dylan up (Dylan would have anyway) he did so with the comment "please send me so many bees". And so, I sent so, so, so many bees.

Just so many bees.

X Sums with Bees

Standard X Sums apply, except the number range is 0-5 instead of 1-6. Adding a 0 to the range always changes how a latin square puzzle feels a lot in interesting ways, I'm surprised I hadn't seen this done before. Though naturally, in the pack it was described as 1-5 and a bee, because bees. And bees outside the puzzle that do nothing, because bees.

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Yajisan Kazusan

Standard Yajisan-Kazusan rules apply. This was actually the first puzzle I made for So Many Bees, and I really tried to make one that Jamie would be happy with. Not only do I think I succeeded, I know I did. Now the only question here is, is this a variant puzzle?

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Zigzag

Standard Password Path rules apply. Puzzle types beginning with Z are rare, so I went with one final alternate name to get it right. The background color here was deliberately chosen to be the exact shade of the "Kappa" emote in Puzzlers Club. Why? Because Jamie suggested puce and no one else had a better idea, so that's what it is. This was also the only puzzle from my first drafts that needed to be revised for non-uniqueness - trying to make this one hard was quite hard.

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Puzzles #373, #374 & #375 - Hexagony Password Path

Password Path was not only the last genre on Hexagony, but also the last genre selected for the contest. As mentioned earlier, picking loop and path genres that could make the jump to hexagonal grids proved challenging. Password Path allowing diagonal lines anyway meant that jumping down to 6 adjacent cells from 8 made it easier to work with than the standard version of the puzzle!

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The only thing I wanted to do for the example puzzle was show that the password could contain a duplicated symbol, and avoid crossings. It turns out that this is still a pretty easy type to construct and solve- a very fun way to end things off.

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This was the only 5 point puzzle on the contest, with an expected solve time for finishing pace being 1 minute. I bet a lot of people crushed that time. The double letter in the password probably made this easier than not having a duplicated symbol, honestly.

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And finally, I went for a thematic conclusion. I was tempted to reverse the order of these or put them first, opening the contest with HEXAGON PUZZLE but ultimately I thought that solvers would want a bit of a come down after that Ripple Effect. Puzzle order is the one thing I'm never sure of in a contest like this, there's not really any wrong answer and there's almost always a way to improve the ordering in some way at the cost of something else. But anyway, thanks for checking out these puzzles and solutions! Overall I'm very proud of Hexagony, from concept to execution to the final result, and I'm glad I put it together. Until next time.