Doctor’s Note #10 – The End of the Beginning
When I originally was planning to launch the site, I had a 60+1 puzzle roll-out in mind. In this puzzle set, I would introduce many of my styles from the past, particularly sudoku, and also write a lot of styles I’m planning to publish in the future. All of those roll-out puzzles have now been released, even if I only have recorded solvers for the 60 announced puzzles and none so far for the +1. That “puzzle” is not at all hard to solve once you find it, but that’s the challenge!
I’d love to hear your feedback now that the full set is released on which were your favorite puzzle types or even your favorite puzzles, so I can consider how to focus going forward. Which type(s) that did not occur would you like to see in the future? The Art of Puzzles will feature challenges in five general genres: Number Placement (TomTom and Skyscrapers), Object Placement (Battleships and Star Battle), Shading (Nurikabe and Tapa), Region Division (Fillomino and Cave), and Loop (Masyu and Slitherlink). And — while this is commercially risky in many people’s minds — it will have no Sudoku puzzles at all. So over the coming weeks, there will be fewer (but not zero) sudoku puzzles on this site as the puzzle styles in The Art of Puzzles get even more focus. And there may finally be a few variations on puzzles, but I won’t be publishing variations until the sequel!
I’ve gotten some questions about how I can keep up with posting so many puzzles every week. Well, I plan to take a little time off now. I have not written any puzzles for this week. But I hope you still visit to solve the puzzles that are here that you might not yet have completed — or found — and anything else that might pop up too. This is the end of the beginning, but the next chapter will be even more incredible.
Well, I’m guessing that puzzle 61 was not the bonus Tapa…
No, neither the “bonus” Tapa (to have a sufficiently great example), or the “LOGO puzzle” from the first post are the “+1” puzzle.
In terms of other puzzle types, there isn’t too much that I’m missing. I do like Killer Sudoku as distinct from Tom-Tom/Calcudoku, but with no Sudoku for a while that’ll obviously wait. Some “connect the pairs” puzzles like Numberlink, Anglers, or Turning Points might be nice. I also think there’s room for “Easy as ABC” somewhere. In terms of placement puzzles, Pentominos are an obvious thing, as are Tents I suppose (but I never much liked Tents). I’d be pretty happy to see Heyawake, and if nothing else it’s a genre where well-designed puzzles are way better than computer-generated puzzles.
I would definitely like to see some variants, especially for the genres that I think get a little same-y. For example, Slitherlink can be a bit bland, but a good Liar or Inside/Outside or Sheep/Wolves Slitherlink can liven things up. Fillomino and Tapa have repeatedly shown themselves to be good for mutating (such as your own Make Room for Tapa puzzles), although both of those genres are also pretty lively and varied without any rule changes.
I’ll second Heyawake and Killer Sudoko, and any puzzle involving Pentominoes.
I’d like to see Kakuro in some form. I know the vanilla Kakuro is probably a little played out, but there are plenty of variants – Sudo-kuro, Skyscraper-Kakuro, Gapped-Kakuro (from the recent LMI Marathon test) etc – that are probably worth exploring.
I’ve solved a number of snake puzzles recently as well. They’ve got a different feel from other path/loop puzzles.
Also, I’ll reiterate my request for Tile Sudoku (though, understanding the paucity of Sudoku in the next few weeks/months).
I’m torn at the moment between these two things: I have the power to edit comments and can fix that Sudoko that always bothers me. I wouldn’t like an admin randomly editing my comments if I were a poster, particularly if I weren’t notified. So here I sit typing out a stream of consciousness instead.
Anyway, if you know my puzzle writing past you know that I’ve been threatening to write “Mutant Kakuro” for many years. I already have a co-author in mind from past Mutant Kakuro construction, but the project will take some time to get to as we both have many other priorities before doing it. Perhaps a few can come up here. I like NC Kakuro myself, and more of the Kakur-Oh! or what I’d call Tile Kakuro might be fun to explore too.
And recognizing Tile Sudoku were the last variant out of my list of 10 (it was hard between Outside and Tile but I felt I had a lot of geometry already), you’ll be getting them next when I focus on new styles again for a half week. But not for a couple months I bet.
>> I wouldn’t like an admin randomly editing my comments if I were a poster, particularly if I weren’t notified.
Yeah, that’s kind of a jerky thing to do, but it’s obviously a typo (I got it right at the next instance), so fix away.
also, feel free to change “an jerky” to “a jerky” since I don’t pronounce “jerky” as “yerky”
Latter comment now edited. There was no flag to tell you anything so I’m wondering if you got any notice. Seems odd to allow it but I learned yesterday I could do it when Grant wanted me to delete a comment and fix another.
Since I’m a big proponent of free speech, I’ll make it my blog policy to not edit except for puzzle name typos.
I did not see a notification, though my email has been a bit flaky in the last week, so it may be still making its way through teh interwebs. (typo intentional)
Not “no sudoku”, just not as many. I’m thinking there are 5 puzzle genres and then sudoku, so maybe 6 things in a rotation? That would be 1/3 as many as before. I’m still sorting out the exact plan, but I have other things to take care of at the moment as the submissions for TAoP come rolling in.
I think well designed Killer Sudoku are great. I’ve yet to make a very elegant art-generating program for them, so it is about 2 hours of dedicated coding from me doing more of them. Its been at that state for a couple years though.
Connect the pairs puzzles are hard to prove uniqueness, so they too are waiting for some code generation. Numberlink has always been highest on my list of “likely to screw it up”, since it is one of the most recent multi-solution puzzles I can remember posting. Albeit 2010, but I was greatly saddened to have done it. But if I can get to them, I’d enjoy doing them as “path” is indeed different from “loop” in many respects. I’d love to explore more of the threaded line types where you get digits 1-N and have to draw a line that goes through them all in order.
Tom,
I have completed the first 58/60 puzzles (haven’t had time for 59 and 60 yet) after finding your original blog via Wired and completing most from the point I started. Your Tapa puzzles were the first I have ever done of that type. More please! (or pointers to other quality producers of that puzzle type, if you will not get back to it soon 😉
Finally (you didn’t ask but…), I wouldn’t mind seeing quality ads on your site to help you fund your efforts.
Regards,
Loren
The best source of Tapa is certainly from their original creator, Serkan Yurekli. He wrote a Classic Tapa Contest at the Logic Masters India site and you can still play those puzzles online. A new contest will be there this summer. Serkan will be providing Tapa for The Art of Puzzles so I know those puzzles will be great!
Also, I didn’t respond to your last suggestion, but do not expecting any ads (except for our own products) to appear on the site. Proper context-sensitive ads would probably be for products we don’t want our readers to experience — like computer-generated puzzles — and we don’t need the small stream of revenue to keep going either, particularly if we lose some of the integrity we’re building by being the best puzzle design brand.
Out of the puzzle genres Star-Battle and slitherlink were my favourites. I love the way you add a totally new dimension to the object placement puzzles.Getting a whole lot of Xs because the possible stars get confined to individual regions within.Nice logic.
I would love to see more of a Four winds kind of puzzle type in the future ,particularly puzzles where only 1 number only can reach say this location and from where the puzzle proceeds.Nurikabe is another example.Ah the fun that i get when i solve puzzles of that type is simply too good.I remember solving one of the 4 winds puzzle motris when i was randomly going through your motrislivejournal where i saw this 4 winds puzzle which had to combine 2 puzzles to complete both.It was so good.I am a bit disappointed that i am not going to see fewer sudokus from now on as i feel that i am stronger in solving sudokus and puzzles well i have to fight against them for 40-50-60 mins to solve.
I personally prefer “defined area” puzzles, so genres like heyawake and lits are amongst my favourite, I also would like to see lights-up (akari) and shakashaka appear as they offer some great examples of diversity and have great amounts to offer as far as variants are concerned.
I’m probably near my limit on Nikoli styles at the moment, having already chosen the ones they do that I know I can do better or differently. Heyawake is one exception as I do like the design rule change I made (what I call Wacky Heyawake or Heyawacky) that opens up the puzzle space more.
It sounds like you’ve ruled it out already, but I’m rather partial to LITS. (All of my other favorites puzzles have already been featured.)