Our past Tight Fit and Consecutive Pairs Sudoku week is gathered in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. Both of these styles are part of our latest Masterpiece Sudoku Mix books. If you purchase these books together (or any two Masterpiece Sudoku Mix books with discount code MASTERPIECE), you’ll receive a 10% discount at checkout.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
The next week of puzzles will feature Araf puzzles.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Spiral
Author/Opus: This is the 408th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.
Rules: Standard Consecutive Pairs Sudoku rules. (If a gray circle is given between two adjacent cells, then the two numbers in those cells must be consecutive. Note not all gray circles are given; adjacent cells without a circle may contain either consecutive numbers or nonconsecutive numbers.)
Difficulty: 2.5 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:45, Master = 4:15, Expert = 8:30
Solution: PDF; a solution video is also available here.
Note: Follow this link for Consecutive Pairs Sudoku puzzles on this website. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Consecutive Pairs Sudoku to get started on. More Consecutive Pairs Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku 2 and in Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 6: Consecutive Pairs Sudoku.
This puzzle is a special Birthday Sudoku variation by Prasanna Seshadri, marking March 2, 1991 to March 2, 2022.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between Sudoku = big entries and Number candidate = small entries in the corners of cells.)
Theme: Tight Fitting a New Beginning
Author/Opus: This is the 229th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.
Rules: Variation of Tight Fit Sudoku rules: Insert a number from {0,1,2,2,2,3,3,9} into each cell so that the full number set appears in each row, column, and bold region. Some white and black circles are given on some slashes. If there is a black circle with the slash, the bigger number must be above the smaller number. If there is a white circle with the slash, the smaller number must be above the bigger number. A number in a circle gives the difference between the two values in the cell with the slash. If the difference is 0, the color of the circle is irrelevant.
Difficulty: 2 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:30, Master = 3:30, Expert = 7:00
Solution: PDF; a solution video is also available here.
Note: Follow this link for other Tight Fit Sudoku puzzles on this website. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Tight Fit Sudoku to get started on. More Tight Fit Sudoku can be found in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli, in The Art of Sudoku 2, and in Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 5: Tight Fit Sudoku.
Today we’ve released the latest editions in our Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series. Both collections (Tight Fit Sudoku and Consecutive Pairs Sudoku) contain 25 sudoku that are masterpieces of visual and logical style, written by some of the best puzzle designers in the world. If you purchase these books together (or any two mix books with discount code MASTERPIECE), you’ll receive a 10% discount at checkout.
Note: We have not set up a digital solving option for these books yet (we have only started this for the Starter Packs but later in this year should come back). We will likely prioritize certain genres over certain book series when adding digital solving to our existing books, and some types like Tight Fit Sudoku are still in the worse part of interface support in my view.
Our past Star Battle week is gathered in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. More books containing Star Battle puzzles can be found here.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
The next week of puzzles will feature Tight Fit Sudoku and Consecutive Pairs Sudoku, both types in our latest Masterpiece Sudoku Mixes (see upcoming post for more details).
We’ve just published the first volume of a new series of “Starter Packs”, books with good easy to medium (Monday to Wednesday) puzzles for some of our different puzzle genres. The first volume, Starter Pack 1: Fillomino features one of our favorite region division puzzles and comes with 30 hand-crafted puzzles by Grant Fikes.
This is also the first e-book from us that includes a set of links to Penpa-Edit versions of the puzzles for online solving. While we are still working to create a more immersive online solving experience in the future, people who buy this book will find a set of 30 web-links at the back to be able to digitally solve all of the puzzles too.
The next Starter Pack will be coming out in a couple months and will feature Tapa by Serkan Yürekli.
Our past variety mix week, with slightly easier than usual puzzles to pair with our “Starter Pack” series, has its puzzles gathered together in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. We’re putting the finishing touches on Starter Pack 1: Fillomino by Grant Fikes (including building very basic digital solving/Penpa option for the book) and will release that in next day.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
The next week of puzzles will feature Star Battle, one of our favorite puzzle styles, and will have five classic and one variation during the week.
I wanted to start some of our 2022 updates for the year by sharing this draft schedule for our books, with most detail set for the first six months of the year. We are continuing our Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly and Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series that we launched in 2021, and also starting a new, accessible puzzle series of “Starter Packs” for people to get into some of our different logic styles. In the same style as the Intro to GMPuzzles books, these Starter Packs will contain ~30 puzzles for ~$1.50 and all puzzles are from 1-2.5 stars in approximate difficulty. Eventually, as we release these books, we will also rebuild the web flow for these styles so that there is a way besides the “blog” to learn about the puzzles, how to use Penpa, and so on.
Book list:
1. Shading Variety Collection by Prasanna Seshadri (January)
2. Starter Pack 1: Fillomino by Grant Fikes (February)
3. Masterpiece Sudoku Mixes 5 and 6 (Tight Fit Sudoku and Consecutive Pairs Sudoku) (early March)
4. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 3 featuring Thermo-Sudoku, Skyscrapers, Battleships, Cross the Streams, Kuromasu, Balance Loop (late March)
5. Starter Pack 2: Tapa by Serkan Yürekli (April)
6. Slitherlink and Variations 2 (April)
7. Tapa and Variations 3 (May)
8. Starter Pack 3: TomTom by Thomas Snyder (June)
9. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 4 featuring Even/Odd Sudoku, Japanese Sums, Minesweeper, Nurikabe, Pentominous, Castle Wall (late June)
10. Masterpiece Sudoku Mixes 7 and 8 (July)
11. Starter Pack 4: Slitherlink by Takeya Saikachi (late July/early August)
12. Loop Variety Collection 2 (August)
13. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 5 (September)
14. TBD title (October)
15. Starter Pack 5: Star Battle by JinHoo Ahn (October)
16. TBD title (November)
17. Starter Pack 6: Jigsaw Sudoku by Thomas Snyder (December)
18. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 6 (December)
The eighteen book schedule is ambitious but lets us diversify the kinds of titles and different puzzles we are publishing while also taking up new goals like getting Penpa/digital solving forms of these by sometime this year.
Not on the “official” list, but part of projects I am working on separately, are releases containing our old patron puzzles including our “Giant” puzzles, starting a Giants annual book, and rereleasing some of my older books of sudoku variants and TomTom puzzles. There is also a very different but interesting puzzle collection book that has been stuck in editing that we hope to get out.
Paired with this schedule, we have also started to look at how easily we can set up a “subscription” in our book store to automatically release these titles to people who want to have all books in a given series like GPQ or who want all books that we publish.
Our past week introducing Aqre puzzles as an “official” shading puzzle style on the site has its puzzles gathered together in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. Aqre puzzles are one of the genres in our e-book Shading Variety Collection by Prasanna Seshadri.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
In a few minutes we will also be releasing another Aqre puzzle as a Sunday Stumper.
The next week of puzzles will be an “easy” variety mix, with just easy-to-medium difficulty puzzles in six different styles. This week will also mark the release of our first “Starter Pack” book with a 30 puzzle Fillomino set of easy to medium grids by Grant Fikes for those looking to get into this puzzle style. More details on that book series, as well as our 2022 book publication schedule, will be shared soon.
Our most recent week of shading variety puzzles is gathered together in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. All the genres this week feature in our e-book: Shading Variety Collection by Prasanna Seshadri.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
The next week of puzzles will continue on the shading theme from last week, with a full week of Aqre puzzles as well as a Sunday Stumper. We hope you enjoy seeing more of this puzzle style that we’re adding into our official rotation this year.