Shade in some water to leave some rectangular islands. Some islands are already labeled with their areas, and some aren't. All islands will touch at the corners (and not the edges). Normally, the water that gets shaded in cannot have any 2x2 blocks, but I forgot that. ETA: That means that rule is not in effect.


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So, Mother's Day, huh? Mom taught me something about anthropology last night, about one commonality among tribes, civilizations, and member groups of sizes in between. It involves individuals who don't contribute, yet who expect to benefit from the work of the rest of the group. When the group is flourishing, the active contributors don't really ( Read more... )

Off and on, I have considered making videos along various lines. One such idea was "Furry Views," a series about the furry fandom in the same vein as "Zero Punctuation" (quickly joined on the Escapist by "Extra Credits" and MovieBob's two series, so the style is getting greater definition). But don't bother looking for "Furry Views" in some obscure ( Read more... )

Hi, folks! I finally decided it was time to dust off the lobe I use for constructing puzzles, and I came up with this fine specimen.
This is a Heyawake superimposed on a Shikaku. Each number is the sum of the area of the rectangular room and the number of black squares in that room. (As with Shikaku, all rooms are clued. So if you have the full ( Read more... )

First, the puzzle itself. Short, an exercise for you, a warm-up for me.

I never knew the man, but I thought I needed to mention him a couple times. I may try to follow up on his work over the next couple weeks, but here, I'm looking at his name. So since "Benoît" has an I-circumflex, I'd like you to tell me this:
1. What value of MANDELBROT brings ( Read more... )

I'm working on Issue 24 of Puzzle Fun Magazine. That's not exactly descriptive of the content, since very few of the many puzzles have specific clues or unique answers. Most of the puzzles in any given issue are minor variations on a small number of themes, and a plurality are optimization problems. Still, I wouldn't actually want Mr. Kurchan to ( Read more... )

You know, guys, I encourage you to comment on all my puzzles, and not just the Tuesday Teasers. I'm even fine with you posting solutions, as long as no one can accidentally see them. (So ROT13 or coloring text white are good ideas.)
I came up with this week's puzzle while thinking about Ripple Effect, and specifically whether non-orthogonal ( Read more... )

Oh crate Cod! This puzzle kicked my hiney, left it red and shiny. The Ripple Effect will take longer than the Country Road, my previous erratum notwithstanding.


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Last month, I posted a chimera for a Tuesday Teaser, but it wasn't very difficult. This week, I'd say I'm fixing that by combining two puzzle types I have never constructed before. Here are the rules for each individually:

Country Road
Draw a path through orthogonally adjacent squares that visits each outlined region once. (Mellow Melon uses a ( Read more... )

Happy 4th of July!

This week, I played matchmaker between Erich Friedman and Alexandre Muñiz. (These links contain some necessary background on weightominoes and sumominoes, respectively.) As sort of a thank-you, Alexandre sent me a problem reminiscent of Erich's extension tilings (problem 5) last month.

Is there a n-omino for which all the ( Read more... )