Sunday Update and Solutions with new Tapa e-book and bonus puzzle
Today we’re excited to announce the release of the new book Tapa and Variations 3, co-authored by Zoltán Horváth and Serkan Yürekli. It features 20 classic Tapa puzzles (including one giant grid) as well as 4 puzzles in each of 9 variations for 56 Tapa in total. This book follows our release about a month ago of Starter Pack 2: Tapa which is a good way for a beginner to get into Tapa where Tapa and Variations 3 has some very challenging puzzles.
To mark the release of the new book, Serkan wrote a bonus “Tapa Sudoku” puzzle for the Cracking the Cryptic channel which you solve find here, as well as watching a solving explanation from Simon Anthony from his own experience with the puzzle as well as seeing me go through it.
Our previous week of Tapa puzzles is gathered together in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. More Tapa puzzles can be found in these books in our store. All of our books including the ones mentioned above feature original puzzles (not from the website), and buying these books is a great way to support the site while getting more fun logical challenges to solve.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
Our next week of puzzles features hexagonal grids, with six different styles taken to a new logical shape by changing the grid behavior.
>Our next week of puzzles features hexagonal grids
OMG pls no, I’m scared af of hexagonal grids…can’t wait to fail next week 😀
Also, Thomas, any news about what you announced here:
>In terms of what’s to come, my big 2022 goal with Penpa is to build a connection of these individual solving pages into “collections” and user accounts/metrics, so our solvers can interact with puzzles outside of the blog structure, know what they have/have not solved, and so we can release books through the site in the same way and not just as a very long collection of links.
No worries if there’s nothing new, it’s just that I’m so excited 🙂
No updates on the second part yet. So far our Penpa support for the Starter Packs has gone well so we will be trying to expand digital solving options in a few ways in the upcoming months.
The rules of the bonus puzzle aren’t explained all that well at the link, but here’s what I got from the video:
Every cell is shaded or unshaded. The shaded cells obey the usual Tapa rules. The circled cells contain Tapa clues; the Tapa clues which belong in empty circles are unknown.
Additionally, all unshaded cells, whether they’re circled or not, must contain a sudoku digit from 1 through 7, with each row and each column containing exactly one of each sudoku digit. (Corollary: every row and every column contains 7 shaded and 7 unshaded cells.) If the cell is circled, then the sudoku digit must be one of the digits in that cell’s Tapa clue, whether that Tapa clue was given at the outset or not. (This is what the sentence about “pencilmark clues” means.)
Be aware that unlike GMP’s Penpa+ interface, this bonus puzzle’s interface won’t automatically check your solution. It’s designed for sudoku only, not for this oddball hybrid!