Puzzle #389 - One Away (Akari)

Akari is always a fun type to make and solve- there's a lot of room for expression and varied deductions, and even the easy ones have a very satisfying sense of flow. This is probably a 3 star puzzle, roughly, and I'm very pleased with the logic I managed to include with this visual theme.

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I aimed for something Nikoli-style with this and I'm not totally sure I succeeded there. Should be a great puzzle regardless of whether or not I hit that goal.

WSPC Report - WPC side

The WSPC 2021 recently concluded, and so I can post my experiences going through the 10 rounds of the WPC side. I'm writing these shortly after attempting each round, and will update with final placements/relative scores. (1st/10th/my score) Let's go!

Puzzle #388 - Lost in the Labyrinth (Statue Park)

I had another puzzle posted over on GMPuzzles today, this time a Statue Park. I really like this type and at the time hadn't really seen all white puzzles, while all black were reasonably common and I'd even done it myself. Fun fact about this puzzle: I originally made it for prototyping for something else entirely, but decided it wasn't a good fit there and that it was worth submitting to GMP.

Puzzle #387 - Trick or Treat (Double Choco Symmetry)

Recently, someone on Puzzler's Club was solving a Double Choco and made a mistake with a 2, thinking it had to be a certain way that it didn't. That mistake gave me an idea- what if it did have to be that way? So I made this Double Choco with the additional rule that all regions (combined light and dark, so the parts you outline) must be point symmetric, as in Spiral Galaxies. The first two iterations both missed a possibility but this one is unique I swear.

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Puzzle #386 - Almost... (Doppelblock)

I actually made this Doppelblock almost a month ago, but didn't post it because it wasn't quite the theme I was going for. Rather than sit on a nice construction indefinitely because I had to clue R5, I figured I should post the puzzle now. Except somehow I posted the wrong version, no longer have the right version, and came up with this working puzzle from the same start. Oops.

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I'll probably keep trying to get that theme to work later- it would be really slick and I'm sure it's possible.

In other puzzle news, I haven't had too much constructing time lately and what I have has been going towards the same two projects. One of them will hopefully surface within a year, and the other I'll publicize once it gets closer to completion. Let's just say that it aims to address one of my biggest complaints for now...

There's also been a third project of a Chip's Challenge set that's finished the design phase, now it's just testing and fixes before release. That will also free up a decent chunk of time to not have on my plate.

Puzzle #385 - Triple Question (Tapa)

First up: I haven't made a post in a while because I most of the puzzles I've been making can't be publicly shared- at some point I'll have a lot of puzzles available to post, but that day is kind of far off for two separate projects- arguably three, but I haven't really started on the third yet. Too many other things first!

Second, semiexp added several new puzzle types to pzprRT, and Tapa was among them. I was curious how powerful touching question marks could be after my T pentomino Tapa from a while back, and ended up with this puzzle. It's pretty tricky, I think, but overall fair with some good structural insights.

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Puzzle #384 - A Learning Experience (Every Second Straight)

I believe that I've mentioned that I'm making 1 puzzle for every genre that PuzzleDuel has, to submit in bulk and provide quality puzzles for everyone. Well, I recently got to Every Second Straight, a loop genre that I only knew from the site. To make matters worse, I solved all prior examples by intuition and tweaking, and had no idea where to begin logically. I suspect many solvers of my puzzle were in the same boat, though I promise there's a clean path through this puzzle with the right knowledge.

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Solving tips after the break. And by tips, I mostly mean revealing the biggest secret this genre holds.

Puzzle #383 - Assisted (Yajilin)

I'm not completely sure why, but tonight I decided to try to use semiexp's pzprrt tool to create a fair Yajilin with a difficult to execute theme. I then tested the solve afterwards to make sure it was reasonable and found that there was not only a nice path through, but the difficulty generally increased throughout the solve. The tool assistance definitely helped, but this puzzle wouldn't have turned out as well as it did without the constructing experience I already had to help guide me in directions I knew would be useful. Enjoy!

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Puzzle #382 - Subdivided (Slitherlink)

Very minor mechanics spoiler for The Witness below the break.

Puzzle #381 - What. (Non-Consecutive Futoshiki)

Recently (and by recently I mean a couple weeks ago, because I'm slow at updating my blog) wand posted an automated tool for 6x6 and 7x7 non-consecutive Futoshiki puzzles. Futoshiki is a subset of Minarism, so... I played around with it a bit and made an extremely unfriendly 7x7 that I don't want to share, and this 4 clue 6x6. Surprisingly, this one actually has a very nice solve path! I definitely recommend giving it a try before playing with the tool yourself.

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