Puzzles #366, #367 & #368 - Hexagony Kakuro

Hexagony needed number placement genres, and the usual latin square genres wouldn't make the jump effectively. The obvious solution was to pick a genre that didn't really care about representing every number in its set, and that was Kakuro. I haven't made too many of these but knew I was up to the task as I've solved a ton and know a lot of cool tricks that sometimes come up. Even still, the hexagonal one was the first puzzle made for Hexagony as I knew that hexagonal number placement would prove to be one of the biggest challenges to get into a good place.

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I'm actually quite happy with how this example turned out, as it shows everything I wanted to show. Some rows aren't clued at all, large and small restricted sums are used, and min-maxing intersections is important as well. It's not the full Kakuro toolkit, not even close, but it does the job.

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Much later, I went to fill in some of the missing gaps in construction with the necessary difficulties. An easier puzzle was needed, and so I made this "Plus or Minus" puzzle, which solves in two halves. The bottom is mostly straightforward, while the top is quite tough without a critical insight.

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I really wanted to sneak in some triangular min-maxing here, but the addition never quite worked out in the end. Despite only having 13 more cells (33%) more than the first Kakuro in the contest, this was worth 45 points- 3 times as much! Some of the required chaining is hard to spot, and there are a lot more sums that are only used to fill one cell after another is resolved. This one is a bit rough around the edges and could have been better- I'll probably revisit the type some time down the road.

Puzzle #365 - Hexagony Slitherlink

Construction for Hexagony actually stalled for a while here, as I barely had any ideas for how to construct a hexagonal Slitherlink. I had a small piece of a break-in in mind with no ideas for where to go further until one day I just sat down and worked it out.

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This puzzle is nicknamed "Off by Three" due to the different sections- I'm actually amazed by the depth of the logic in this layout, given the symmetry and clue theming. I especially love how the last two parts end up resolving.

Puzzles #363 & #364 - Odd Ones Out (Hexagony Caves)

I seem to have a knack for making interesting Cave puzzles, so when it came time to pick genres for Hexagony, it was at the top of my list for types I wanted to make.

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These two puzzles are themed together, both nicknamed "Odd One Out" for a couple reasons. First and most obvious is that each puzzle is shaped (roughly) like the cell shape of the other grid, something I really wanted to do. The second reason is that each puzzle has a single clue that's off-theme, that being the 8 (not divisible by 3) and 9 (not divisible by 2) in each puzzle, respectively. As an added bonus, the "wrong" clue would fit perfectly in the other puzzle, and the hexagonal grid has the extra clue be off-symmetry. I really like how both of these turned out, giving both an easy and a hard puzzle!

Puzzle #362 - Hexagony Star Battle

There's a funny thing about the Star Battle puzzles from Hexagony. Eric Fox made both the square and hexagonal grid contest puzzles, but we still needed an example. And so, I set out to make the most interesting 1 star Star Battle I could on a 6x6 grid. I'd definitely say I succeeded, even if one of my intended core steps can be circumvented.

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I'd highly recommend checking out the other two Star Battles before watching the solution video below- I promise they're both well worth it!

Puzzle #361 - Hexagony Tapa

Making a Tapa on a hexagonal grid was something that I'd wanted to do for quite a while, and Hexagony was the perfect opportunity to make it.

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I started with the 12 and 3 clues for their interaction- similar to a 14 and 4 in regular Tapa. Once I had that starting point in place, it was a lot of fun to try to work the rest of the grid around the outer edges. This solve path is probably one of my favorites in the whole contest, though there's a few that I'm much happier with the construction of.

Puzzles #359 & #360 - Hexagony Fillomino

So, Fillomino was an obvious choice for inclusion in Hexagony. The rules don't care at all about the shape of the cells, only edge connections. The two contest puzzles both took a completely different style, while for the example I ended up with something similar to Eric's contribution.

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I tried really, really hard to not need that 6 to make everything resolve uniquely in the way I wanted it to... Ultimately it was necessary, no matter what I changed to try to use 5s instead.

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Hexagonal Fillomino is quite tough to construct, as everything has so many possible options for where to expand. I ended up with a somewhat subtle break-in here, and then I just made the rest of the puzzle flow around. This was still worth 15 points, however, as tracking connections to see where things are forced is somewhat time consuming.

Puzzles #356, #357 & #358 - Hexagony Bosnian Road

Getting loopy puzzles into Hexagony proved challenging. The solution was to pick a snaky type, and I chose Bosnian Road because I like the way the clues work. One problem: I'd literally never made one of these before! It was definitely a learning experience and none of these three puzzles turned out too difficult, but I still managed to work some nice steps into the contest puzzles.

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My entire goal with the example was to show that the clues weren't Tapa-like, and were instead Minesweeper-like. I honestly didn't put much effort into this construction other than making something that worked and was symmetric.

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I did put a lot of effort into this puzzle, however. I started with the layout of givens as I was certain it could yield an interesting puzzle, and then placed the clues necessary for the break-in because I really wanted to use that sort of deduction. Cleaning up the rest of the puzzle took a lot more effort to get right than it does to solve, creating a reasonable challenge perfect for an early spot in the contest.

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On a hexagonal grid, a snaky path is just as forcing as on a square grid, and I used a different core trick for the hardest step here. Again, it shouldn't be too bad to figure out, but if you get stuck I do have a solution video for these as well.

Hexagony Kurotto

None of the Kurotto puzzles written for Hexagony were written by me, so I only have some comments and walkthroughs for you today. First, here's the solution video:

All three of these puzzles have very nice solution paths, with some varied deductive techniques required. My favorite of the three is the square grid one- the way the 4 touching clues interact is such a clever thing to include, and to have it used multiple times in different ways is such a slick construction. Kudos to Eric Fox for these!

Puzzle #355 - Hexagony Akari

I only have one Akari puzzle to post today, as I re-used the example from Puzzle Zodiac for use in Hexagony. I'm very happy with how this one turned out, I think it uses the hexagonal grid very well. All of the puzzle types selected for Hexagony were picked for their rules being able to immediately translate to other grid shapes, and also solving somewhat differently. Most of the hexagonal grids were constructed first as they would be the harder ones to get working satisfactorily, so I was quite surprised when my initial spiral idea just worked. Akari was placed as the second type on the contest as I felt having the difficulty across both puzzles of a type ramp up throughout the contest, except the thematic first and last choices.

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Puzzles #352, #353 & #354 - Hexagony Spiral Galaxies

It's kind of impossible to have missed that I recently ran a puzzle contest named Hexagony. Over the next two weeks, I'll be posting all of the puzzles I constructed for the contest (including examples), alongside a solution video walkthrough for the puzzles from that type. There were a few types where Eric Fox, my co-constructor, contributed all 3 necessary puzzles. On those days, I'll just post the solution video and some thoughts on the puzzles.

I started off the contest with Spiral Galaxies, not because I thought it would be the smoothest start, but because of the hidden theme in the first contest puzzle. Remember that for the participants, they would have no idea that half of the puzzles had hexagonal grids before beginning. First though, here's the example puzzle I put together.

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The first contest puzzle ended up being one of the hardest puzzles in the entire contest, as well as one of the largest. The size was necessary for the theme, which is something I wonder if people caught on to while solving and inferred how things were likely to go. It's a very satisfying logical solve, however.

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And finally, the only working puzzle that was rejected for the contest- I posted this with the results, but am reposting it here to canonize it in my numbered puzzles. It's a fun solve- I did not record a solution to this puzzle, but that shouldn't be an issue as it's much easier than the main contest puzzle.

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