We’ll have a little more discussion in the comments here later after the dust settles about the puzzles, but we hope everyone enjoyed today’s US Puzzle Championship.

Our puzzlemasters contributed several puzzles to the competition including:

Crosslink by Grant Fikes
Double Minesweeper by Serkan Yürekli
Nurikabe Path by Thomas Snyder
Star Search by Thomas Snyder
Tapa by Serkan Yürekli
Tapa View by Prasanna Seshadri
Wind Shield by Serkan Yürekli
Wordmark by Serkan Yürekli

All the puzzles from last week’s Araf collection have been grouped in this PDF. It seemed to have been well received as a genre so we may choose to feature it more regularly in our rotation. I personally enjoy it a bit more than other intuitive styles like Numberlink, but that could just be a result of it feeling “new” having only solved about twenty Araf puzzles.

This coming week has a mini-theme to it, perhaps “something old, something new”, as half the puzzles will be from guest contributors who have made some interesting puzzles. The rest are from Grant Fikes, who is not so much “old” as familiar. He’s been contributing about a puzzle a day since the start of the year; there will be a collection of the Foxger’s puzzles coming later this year as a book/e-book from GMPuzzles which will be a great book for solvers just learning how to solve some of these types.

The exact schedule for the week is this (highlight to view):

Monday: Star Battle by Grant Fikes
Tuesday: Skyscrapers by Grant Fikes
Wednesday: Fillomino by Walker Anderson
Thursday: Yajilin by Grant Fikes
Friday: Place by Product by Ravi Kumar Macherla
Saturday: Tapa by Murat Can Tonta

The bonus puzzle for our high-level supporters will be a Masyu by Prasanna Seshadri.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools with a composite mode for line/edge drawing.)

Theme: Aisles

Author/Opus: This is the 177th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Divide the grid into some regions formed of edge-adjacent squares. Each cell is part of one region, and each region should contain exactly two given numbers. Each region must have an area that is strictly between those numbers (This means, for two number clues A and B with A < B, the area C fulfills A < C < B).

Answer String: Enter the number of cells in each connected group (between bold lines) in the marked rows. For the example above, this is “34,121111,4111”.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 0:45, Master = 1:15, Expert = 2:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Araf is a relatively new puzzle for us on GMPuzzles. Follow this link for other Araf.

All the puzzles from last week’s variety week have been grouped in this PDF. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve also been highlighting some championship puzzles written by puzzlemaster Serkan Yürekli. If you’d like to see his entire 24HPC puzzle set, go here. The Japan dakejanai Zukei dakejanai Puzzle Championship puzzles we featured have not been released yet, but may eventually be here.

Serkan has been an instrumental designer in sharing good ideas from Japan with a wider, western audience; his OAPC series, WPC puzzles, and even his contributions here at Grandmaster Puzzles (like last week’s Dominion originally by Naoki Inaba) are often styles adapted from puzzles he finds in Japanese championships. Next week will focus on another such type, originally a Japanese style 相ダ部屋 that was renamed Araf, meaning “purgatory” in Turkish, by Serkan when I first ran into it at the 2010 World Puzzle Championship. We will have some classic puzzles, and some interesting minor variations.

The bonus puzzle for our high-level supporters will be a Cross the Streams by Grant Fikes. Our Master and above patrons also received a puzzle we believe to be the largest Tapa ever made (it is certainly the largest Tapa Serkan Yürekli has ever written). If you haven’t considered supporting our website yet, now would be a good time to do so.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between ship placement and shading modes. In ship placement mode, right click gives sea, left click gives circle/square, left click and drag for rounded ships.)

Theme: Logic and Near Symmetry (the row and column clues break into mostly symmetric groups)

Author/Opus: This is the 176th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Battleships rules. Use the indicated fleet.

Answer String: For each row from top to bottom, enter the number of the first column from the left where a ship segment appears (enter both digits if a two-digit number). If the row is empty, enter 0. Enter these numbers as a single string with no separators.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:00, Master = 1:30, Expert = 3:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Battleships. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Battleships to get started on.

All the puzzles from last week’s Skyscrapers collection have been grouped in this PDF. Many thanks again to Roland Voigt for the fantastic Skyscrapers; he even made some walkthroughs for the classic puzzles. You’ll find more of Roland’s puzzles here and other content linked from his blog.

Next week will be another variety week with a range of puzzles including a few new variations (highlight to view):

Monday: Battleships by Thomas Snyder
Tuesday: Slitherlink (Sheep and Wolves) by Grant Fikes
Wednesday: TomTom by Grant Fikes
Thursday: Dominion by Serkan Yürekli
Friday: Thermo-Skyscraper Sudoku by Hans van Stippent
Saturday: Heavy Dots by Prasanna Seshadri

The bonus puzzle for our high-level supporters will be a Fillomino by Prasanna Seshadri.

We will also have a few bonus puzzles throughout the week from the recent competition puzzles from Serkan Yürekli. This week they will all be Double Minesweeper puzzles which is a style we plan to feature in a future title from Grandmaster Puzzles.

All the puzzles from last week have been grouped in this PDF.

Next week (including the bonus puzzle for our supporters) will feature just one puzzle style, made by the person we consider the world’s best author of that style: Skyscrapers by Roland Voigt

We will also have a few bonus puzzles throughout the week (and in the coming weeks), which are our favorite recent competition puzzles from Serkan Yürekli. These aren’t really organized by difficulty level, but are also definitely worth checking out.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Man Made Out of Stars

Author/Opus: This is the 175th puzzle from Thomas Snyder aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Star Battle rules. Two stars per row, column, and region.

Answer String: For each row from top to bottom, enter the number of the first column from the left where a star appears. If the number has two digits, just enter the unit’s digit (i.e. column “10” would be entered as 0). Enter these numbers as a single string with no separators.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:30, Master = 5:15, Expert = 10:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Star Battles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Star Battles to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools in linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)

Theme: Conway’s Game of Life (this 11×11 puzzle was first made for the 11th Gathering 4 Gardner, which focused on Conway. Many familiar shapes from the Game of Life appear. Also, check out this recently launched Martin Gardner Organization website.)

Author/Opus: This is the 174th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Masyu rules.

Answer String: Enter the length in cells of the horizontal loop segments from left to right in the marked rows, starting at the top. If the loop only has vertical segments in the marked row, enter 0. Separate each row’s entry with a comma.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:45, Master = 2:30, Expert = 5:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Masyu. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Masyu to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Desperately Seeking Seven (Note: the shading of the “7” shaped region is just for artistic purposes.)

Author/Opus: This is the 173rd puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules (no repeats in any rows, columns, or bold regions). The digit range is 1-7.

Answer String: Enter the 2nd row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 5th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:15, Master = 2:00, Expert = 4:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.