That Magic Order was the perfect "variant" Number Placement puzzle for our 24H puzzle competition round was a choice made by Palmer Mebane who organized Team USA's round. And it was a great choice as a puzzle naturally themed around 24 different numbers in a Latin Square grid. Magic Order debuted on the 2012 USPC and got a great preview treatment ( Read more... )

Last year's USPC left me with an empty feeling inside, and that showed in my follow-up puzzle. This year was a much more filling experience, a feeling I hope to share in this Fillomino puzzle ( Read more... )

Many of you will have already seen what I post below, as we successfully moved the post-USPC chatter to LMI's forum with user-locking to keep other solvers spoiler-free. But as is my custom, I'm posting it here now with some edits/more details for those who haven't seen it yet ( Read more... )

In fairness to other international competitors who may still be competing through Sunday, I will not post a detailed summary of the test until everyone is done.

But upon my request a closed discussion forum has been set up at Logic Masters India so I ask that we take the conversation there. If you have taken the test, and do not have access to ( Read more... )

Multiplicative CorralRules: Draw a single closed loop along the grid lines so that all the numbered squares are inside the loop. Additionally each given number is the product of two numbers: the number of interior squares that are directly in line vertically with that number's square (including the square itself), times the number of interior ( Read more... )

Who is this Thomas Snyder that wrote so much about the USPC last year? I'm not sure I recognize him. He offers such great notation tips but I struggle to remember to use them all. And he seems to have so much time to document the history of a test when I'm not sure I'll find time to read the instructions until late this evening ( Read more... )

This coming weekend is the USPC and for the first time the test will be "open" for the whole weekend, even though official qualifying is still for solvers who start at 1 PM EDT on Saturday. This probably means two things. First, anxiety levels will be higher (and my inbox potentially more full) of people wanting to check answer keys which will now ( Read more... )

While I was hoping to share the ?-Agony with you this week, the runaway vote winner was "Inside/Outside Corral". I think a proper USPC tribute needs a more fitting title than that, so playing off the style's Japanese name, and thinking about my chances at winning a 6th title, I'll go out on a limb and say "It's in the Bag ( Read more... )

After collecting and grouping nominations, the following 6 USPC puzzle styles could be the subject for this week's Friday Puzzle. Please vote for your favorite choice.

Note: I've attached links to solution images below to remind you what they look like -- visit the USPC team site for the relevant years if you want the puzzles and instructions.

Poll

The USPC is in two weeks and two Fridays from now I will run my usual poll to write a puzzle from the new instruction booklet. Before then, I plan to write one more Friday Puzzle of an old style. Please suggest (in the comments) what USPC puzzle from 2003-2011 you might want to see again. I'll cull those selections down to a vote at the end of the