Here are our best Shading puzzles of 2015. As shading puzzles are (still) our most frequent category with 42 posts, there are five awards this year with just four in the other categories.

Leading off this list is a very neat geometry of cages in this Nanro by Grant Fikes.

This classic Tapa puzzle by Tapio Saarinen with an antisymmetry theme also got a lot of Fave votes.

Hex week was by far our most favorited week of puzzles in 2015, and every puzzle from that week was either a Best of … winner or a close runner-up. In the shading genre, Prasanna Seshadri’s Tapa (Hex) was amongst the best shading puzzles of 2015.

Also from Hex week, this SLICY by Thomas Snyder (a LITS variant) was a top shading puzzle and tied for third for votes across the year.

The best puzzle in this category, and the best puzzle of the year based on number of Fave votes, was this Unique Clues variation of Tapa by Tapio Saarinen. It was truly a special puzzle with many different insights hidden in a quite elegant package.