I really like simple loop puzzle types and ran into this fairly novel idea recently in some of Nikoli's magazines (first debuting in #126). As I do with new designs in that magazine where I can't read the Japanese instructions, I tried for awhile to look at example puzzles to figure out what was going on. This time Doctor Sudoku couldn't ( Read more... )

While there have been a few Open Sudoku tournaments in Asia with large first prizes that I haven't ever thought of attending, the upcoming Beijing International Sudoku Tournament promises to be one I'm seriously thinking about with "cost-covering" prizes for a lot of the top 10 spots ($10,000 US for 1st, then $6,000, $5,000, $4,000, $3,000, $2,000 ( Read more... )

Two intermediate difficulty puzzles this week, both originally written for the Turkish Puzzle Championship (TBT) test as about 5 minute puzzles. Both are also indicative of what my next puzzle project will look like, with classic puzzles but different kinds of themes and (hopefully) fun solves ( Read more... )

As I start my second year of the Friday Puzzle, I wanted to begin exploring new ideas with Yajilin. I've got a couple variations to experiment with which you'll probably see next week, but first I wanted to try to make an interesting small puzzle. To better use the geometric feature I wanted, this puzzle went to 11 (by 11).

Rules: See here


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I wrote this puzzle before yesterday's great Nikoli.com Akari but it might have some of the same attributes of feeling "strange" because the steps are less used. I'll leave a spoiler comment below about what my goals here were. Enjoy!

Rules: See here


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My new Nikoli.com blogging has made me relook at some of the faster solves and identify some themes I might have missed. The Medium in Name Only (MINO) Hitori from earlier this week, which was my favorite for that day, had a cool tetromino structure that I would otherwise not have noticed after my thirty seconds with the puzzle was done if I wasn' ( Read more... )

After the introduction of the NYT KenKen last year, I dropped my NYT crossword membership. I felt insulted - as a puzzle constructor, puzzle solver, and self-identified member of the "liberal elite" - to have a puzzle formatted to teach 1st graders basic arithmetic ported, without changes, into the nation's leading newspaper next to the higher- ( Read more... )

Another in this series ....

5/19/10 - 12x12 by cubic function - 3:15
(and I should again really be talking about the nice Heyawake instead, but I guess I'll start a general nikoli.com series tomorrow morning)

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Until we get an English language Nikoli.com forum, I think I'm going to take up a discussion of their puzzles here from time to time. Certainly after today's big puzzle:

5/15/10 - 17x17 by Casty - 15' with error, then 6'44"

Of course I'd like to believe that in response to my negative post yesterday Nikoli pulled out an impressive puzzle in its ( Read more... )

In any given week, I hit or I miss with my audience ( Read more... )