Sunday Update and Solutions

Our recent week of Japanese Sums puzzles is gathered together in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. More Japanese Sums puzzles (alongside five other genres) can be found in Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 4, which we recently released.

The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:

This week we hit a (small) milestone of getting to 1000 subscribers to our YouTube channel. We’re figuring out a good way to mark this occasion, possibly including a 10 by 10×10 puzzle set that I mentioned on the puzzlecrafting video describing my 400th puzzle. We’re also working on some other kinds of content to go alongside the daily solution videos as our goal is to keep growing the audience from here.

We’ll be back in a few minutes with a tough Sunday Stumper puzzle, and then this coming week will be an easier “Starter Pack” variety mix of puzzles. One of them will be a TomTom puzzle from me, and at the end of the week we will be releasing Starter Pack 3: TomTom by Thomas Snyder, a collection of 36 hand-crafted puzzles for beginners (and others) to get into this interesting puzzle style.

Sunday Stumper: Japanese Sums (Battleships) by John Bulten

Since 2021, we have posted some extra difficult Sunday Stumpers, about once a month. These will be quite tough puzzles, but with a logical path to be found (and solution videos to help). This seventh Sunday Stumper of 2022 is a variation of Japanese Sums by John Bulten.

Japanese Sums (Battleships) by John Bulten

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between number entry and shading modes.)

Theme: Yamato

Author/Opus: This is the 88th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster John Bulten.

Rules: Standard Japanese Sums rules: Place the numbers in the indicated range (1-9) in some of the cells so that no number is repeated in any row or column. Numbers on the outside of the grid indicate the sums of adjacent number groups in that row or column, in order. Each sum is separated by at least one unused cell. A ? can represent any sum of 1 or larger.

Also, all unused cells must form an unknown fleet of 1-cell wide ships in the grid. Each segment of a ship occupies a single cell, and ships do not touch each other, even diagonally.

Japanese Sums Example

Difficulty: 5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 18:30, Master = 30:00, Expert = 1:00:00

Solution: PDF and solving video.

Note: Follow this link for other Japanese Sums puzzles.

Japanese Sums by Sam Cappleman-Lynes

Japanese Sums by Sam Cappleman-Lynes

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between number entry and shading modes.)

Theme: Why was 6 Afraid of 7?

Author/Opus: This is the 10th puzzle from guest contributor Sam Cappleman-Lynes.

Rules: Place the numbers in the indicated range (1-8) in some of the cells so that no number is repeated in any row or column. Numbers on the outside of the grid indicate the sums of adjacent number groups in that row or column, in order. Each sum is separated by at least one unused cell. A ? can represent any sum of 1 or larger.

Japanese Sums Example

Difficulty: 4.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 12:00, Master = 20:00, Expert = 40:00

Solution: PDF and solving video.

Note: Follow this link for other Japanese Sums puzzles.

Japanese Sums by Prasanna Seshadri

Japanese Sums by Prasanna Seshadri

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between number entry and shading modes.)

Theme: Twenty20 Vision

Author/Opus: This is the 238th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.

Rules: Place the numbers in the indicated range (1-9) in some of the cells so that no number is repeated in any row or column. Numbers on the outside of the grid indicate the sums of adjacent number groups in that row or column, in order. Each sum is separated by at least one unused cell. The adjacent question marks (??) show two-digit numbers, not two groups)

Japanese Sums Example

Difficulty: 3.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 6:00, Master = 9:15, Expert = 18:30

Solution: PDF and solving video.

Note: Follow this link for other Japanese Sums puzzles.