This irregular sudoku is rather difficult. I would be interested in knowing how long it takes to solve. Also, the interactive environment this time is the scanraid solver, so I wonder how many will succumb to temptation.
A brilliant alarm clock
I'd like to take some time today to praise the CASIO DQ-850 alarm clock. Yes, really.
A couple of years ago, I had to buy my parents an alarm clock. Again. New clock springs are made of dry leaves, or so it felt after their OCD cranking busted yet another. Digital clocks seemed to be beyond their device handling skills, resulting in them being afraid to switch it off for the weekend, and needing help to deal with DST. Battery operated clocks with analogue faces proved to be easily susceptible to both normal wear and tear and the occasional drop. Drops were much more common than you'd think, as all such reasonably priced alarm clocks had poorly accessible controls, thus necessitating handling (and fumbling) in the dark.
I found the DQ-850 in the very back of the shop shelf, with tags indicating it had been laying about for a decade, and bought it for a song. And yet, it is superbly designed for the elderly in your life. Since this is a blog filled with problems, take a look at it and see if you can figure out why it's post-worthy - my answer is after the fold :
Break over
Not that I'm likely to go back to a regular publishing schedule, but it'll hopefully be more frequent than the past few days. If it's any consolation, I have been writing puzzles for a different medium this week, and some of them may find their way here eventually.
Anyhow, on to the rules for today's puzzle: Place the 12 free pentominoes onto the blank space in the grid. Numeric clues indicate the number of pentominoes in the 8 adjacent cells.
Anyhow, on to the rules for today's puzzle: Place the 12 free pentominoes onto the blank space in the grid. Numeric clues indicate the number of pentominoes in the 8 adjacent cells.
Reflect link
Another Nikoli experiment. Draw a loop joining orthogonally adjacent cell centres. All points where straight loop segments intersect are given as crosses, and must be visited. The loop may not touch itself (stop sniggering) at any other point or way. The loop must visit all cells with triangles, and must turn at those points. Some of these triangles may be marked with a number, which indicates the total number of cells visited by the straight loop segments meeting there.
I have never actually seen one of these problems before in any medium, so I have no idea how close these are to the typical problem of this sort. The first one is an easy introduction to the rules, the second one is just a bit meatier.
ShakaShaka!
I have to say I love this puzzle's name. The rules of ShakaShaka are kind of odd, so read carefully. I'm rather fond of this one: the logic flows smoothly, it's nicely Q-shaped for a similar commemorative reason to a prior puzzle (minus the drink), and didn't take forever to make.
Hidden Halfgrid
Draw a loop that contains exactly half the grid by connecting orthogonally adjacent dots. All cells with the same letter have the same number of sides used by the loop. All cells with different letters have a different number of sides used by the loop. Packs a decent punch for the size and clue density. And yes, I win no points for elegance.
Masyu 3 - now with added pzv
(Rules). Medium, I guess. There's a uniqueness fix that I'm not too crazy about in there.
You may notice that clicking on the picture brings up the wonderful pzv.jp site, where you can solve the problem online. I was considering the much more capable janko.at applet, but board entry is currently manual, and the Java requirement means some users will miss out.
You may notice that clicking on the picture brings up the wonderful pzv.jp site, where you can solve the problem online. I was considering the much more capable janko.at applet, but board entry is currently manual, and the Java requirement means some users will miss out.
Counting
Count triangles of all sizes in the picture. This is one of those things that is achievable in either a minute or an hour, depending on prior experience. Since it's rather hard to verify one's own answer for this sort of activity, I'm going to spoil the puzzle for lovers of Early Byzantine history: the answer is the year Gainas fled from Constantinople.
Local fun
I participated in a local Sudoku tournament yesterday, and won myself some drink I'll have to pass to someone. Turns out there are pleasant, dedicated and organised puzzling folk nearby, which was news to me. Let me clue their name in an event-appropriate way:
Another Pentomino tiling.
For once, looking where to put Xs won't help much. Otherwise, everything from the previous post applies.
2 grids, 4 minutes
Get your stopwatches out, read under the fold, and fill these two sudoku grids in four minutes or less.
Welcome to the Ice Barn
Ice Barn is a rather rare Nikoli type. Rules go something like:
Draw a directed path from IN to OUT, visiting all the ice barns (grey areas) along the way. You move from cell centre to adjacent cell centre in an orthogonal fashion. You may not backtrack, overlap or branch. You may not turn inside a barn. Crossing your path is only allowed inside barns. In some puzzles, parts of the path will be given; an arrowhead on them indicates direction of movement along them.
I've got some nerve publishing this: I wrote this a couple of hours after learning this puzzle type existed. The solution is more symmetric than the grid, so I think that's obvious.
I have to say I love the Japanese naming connotations. Ice, because of the sliding inside presumably. And barn, because, um... , that's where you usually revisit your past actions? Or keep your ice, for that matter.
Pentomino tiling
Cover the white cells of the grid with one of each of the 12 different free pentominoes. This shape is uniquely tiled on its own, but you will likely have more fun if you use the clues. The clues on the top and left specify the number of pentominoes in that row / column. Any pentomino on a row / column with a clue to its right/bottom covers at least as many cells of that row / column as the clue.
A brief slalom
Slalom aka Suraromu problems (rules) are notoriously soft against uniqueness logic. For those not in the know, uniqueness is the label for the kind of logic which assumes that the puzzle is correct and has exactly one solution. This particular problem isn't susceptible. Much.
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