Our last category for the Best of 2022 posts is “Loop / Path” puzzles, where we had 59 posts during the year. All of the best puzzles are gathered in this PDF file.

Our first puzzle to earn best of ratings is a Slitherlink (Liar) puzzle by Thomas Snyder with a Bull’s-Eye theme. This puzzle hit the mark with its solvers by highlighting several different uses of the “lying” clues during the solve.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to switch between edgex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s, and a shading and number entry mode to mark/update the liar clues.)

Next up on the favorites list was an Equality puzzle by Murat Can Tonta, a loop variation featured in our Loop Variety Collection 2. This Equality puzzle has several different quadrants to work through and very interesting logic.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between the default linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s and a shading mode to help mark cells.)

Two Castle Wall puzzles earned top marks in 2022 but neither was “typical” in that they only used black clues. The first was a “Black Box” Castle Wall puzzle by JinHoo Ahn, another masterpiece from this talented puzzle designer.

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)

Second best in category was another uncommon variation, this time an “unequal lengths” variation that we had seen in other loop styles but that shone through in this Slitherlink (Unequal Lengths) puzzle by Murat Can Tonta.

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

The best loop and best overall puzzle of 2022 was this Castle Wall gem that also uses just black clues in an interesting layout to reveal the one forced solution by an interesting logical path.

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)

What did you think of these “best of 2022” puzzles? Add your comments to the posts and send your thanks to the authors for these great constructions.

Splitting apart a large grid into subregions or shapes is the unifying element for our “Region Division” category, where we will be announcing the five best of 2022 puzzles today selected from 47 posted puzzles. The “best of” puzzles are gathered together in this PDF file.

We kick off today’s “best of region division” section with this great Fillomino puzzle by Jonas Gleim. The separation of evens and odds leads to some interesting emergent logic as one works to the unique solution.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Contributing puzzlemaster Takeya Saikachi drew a lot of attention with his puzzles in 2022 including this Cave (Myopia) combination that takes the familiar “Myopia” arrows and applies them to another genre where this was at least my first time seeing this kind of combination.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)

Early in each year we often post “New Year” puzzles with a clear 20XX theme. This 2022 Fillomino from Prasanna Seshadri was one of our first puzzles in the year and an instant “classic” destined for this best of ranking.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

While we can’t tell you the theme behind this Spiral Galaxies puzzle by Murat Can Tonta, one of the commenters said “This might be my favourite puzzle yet!” We think you might enjoy the solving path and hidden surprises too.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a shading mode.)

While this was a very competitive category this year, the top puzzle stood out clearly from the rest and was another masterpiece by JinHoo Ahn who keeps finding impressive ways to use very few letters to make brilliant Pentominous puzzles. This elegant 8-letter Pentominous is our best Region Division puzzle of 2022.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing, a letter entry mode, and a shading mode.)

One of our favorite categories, which has a whole host of puzzle styles, is “Shading” puzzles. Today we’re announcing our best of 2022 puzzles in this category, from the 57 posts during the year; all the winners are in this PDF file.

Veteran puzzlemaker Grant Fikes gave us our first “Best Of Shading” puzzle last year with this Cross the Streams (Matching Sections) puzzle. The interlinking within the grid was a fresh idea that our solvers loved. Based off a YouTube comment the author has made another creative subsection puzzle to follow-up on this one.

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

2022 saw a couple new puzzle styles enter our standard rotation and Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly books, and Aqre (originated by Eric Fox) was selected for two best of puzzle awards. One of the Aqre puzzles that got recognition was this Sunday Stumper by Murat Can Tonta with a “Squares” theme.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the composite Yajilin mode where left click marks cells, right click marks dots in cells or X’s on edges, left click+drag draws lines.)

Our managing editor, Serkan Yürekli, wrote many incredible puzzles in this past year including this playful Pata puzzle with some very unusual forcing logic to reach the final solution.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the composite Yajilin mode where left click marks cells, right click marks dots in cells or X’s on edges, left click+drag draws lines.)

Another Aqre puzzle that got lots of FAVEs from our solvers came from Eric Fox with this “sixes” puzzle from the first week we posted puzzles from this genre. A lot of different Aqre tricks are hidden within the region shapes here with just 6 clues.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the composite Yajilin mode where left click marks cells, right click marks dots in cells or X’s on edges, left click+drag draws lines.)

Our overall best of 2022 Shading puzzle came from Sam Cappleman-Lynes who made a playful planetary theme in this Nurikabe (Cipher) puzzle. Working out how the sun and the few planets form “islands” in “space” was a clever visual and logical theme, emblematic of the best from Grandmaster Puzzles.

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

Today we continue our Best of 2022 posts with the “Object Placement” category. Throughout 2022 we had 44 posts in this area and several outstanding puzzles. The five “best of” puzzles are gathered together in this PDF file.

The first puzzle recognized in this category comes from our newest “contributing puzzlemaster”, Takeya Saikachi of Japan. This Battleships puzzle has minimal information in the outside clues but clever thinking will still let you place the full fleet.

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.)

The second puzzle also comes from Takeya Saikachi, this time with a playful “Squares” theme in a Battleships puzzle with a pentomino fleet.

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

Guest contributor Sam Cappleman-Lynes sent along two “best of” puzzles in the object placement category, starting with this Statue Park puzzle with a clean and interesting “Boxes” theme.

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

Sam also got recognition for this Star Battle puzzle that visually looks like a fighter from an iconic Sci-Fi series but embeds some creative logic in the solution as well.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; in composite Star Battle mode a left click places a star, right click in a cell marks off the cell, and a right click on an edge or corner marks in a dot as a placement note.)

Our best puzzles often take a standard genre and present them in an unusual way, which is the case for the top Object Placement puzzle of 2022. This Statue Park (Half and Half) by Murat Can Tonta asks “Where Are the Circles?” and generated a lot of positive reviews for its avant-garde style.

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

Our second site category for the Best of 2022 posts is “Number Placement”, where we had 50 posts during the year. All of the puzzles are gathered together in this PDF file.

We kick off the “best of 2022” number placement with a Kakuro (Hex) puzzle by Murat Can Tonta that had a marvelous solving path with very minimal clues used throughout.

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

Less familiar genres often get recognition during the best of series, particularly when they have a memorable solving path with several Aha moments. Grant Fikes’ Skyscrapers (Haido) with an Evens theme was such a puzzle and received a lot of favorite votes.

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

Our last puzzle of 2022, a Kakuro (Gapped) puzzle by Prasanna Seshadri, also ended up being a best of 2022 puzzle. The grid is fairly open yet follows a nicely hidden logical path throughout.

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

2nd best in the Number Placement category for 2022 was an elegant Skyscrapers (Cipher) by Serkan Yürekli which combined an interesting visual theme with an interesting solving path.

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; note that solution checking requires the eleven ciphered clues and the twenty-five interior cells to all be marked)

The top Number Placement puzzle of 2022 was a “milestone” puzzle, the 400th post by Thomas Snyder. This TomTom (Mystery) with just one clue also came with a YouTube video describing the puzzle-making process behind the grid.

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

We’re starting off our six part series of Best of 2022 posts with Sudoku, a puzzle category with 59 entries throughout the year as well as a place in many of our e-book releases including the Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series and the Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly series.

As in years past, we selected the top Sudoku by reviewing FAVE votes, web comments, and tested comments. All of these puzzles are gathered in this PDF file.

Our first “best of” puzzle goes to a challenging Classic Sudoku by Ashish Kumar that had some unusual steps to get to the finish.

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

Another top sudoku was the t-shirt puzzle by Thomas Snyder for the United States team at the recent World Sudoku and Puzzle Championships, with a very clean theme not needing any given digits.

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

Guest constructor Jonas Gleim made a fantastic combination of Arrow and Thermo-Sudoku puzzles with this “Compass” Sunday Stumper from May that received a lot of favorite votes.

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

A Thermo-Sudoku from Kishore Kumar Sridharan took the second overall Sudoku spot, with a “weighty” theme from the given dumbbell.

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

Surprisingly, the top puzzle for the year was a new variation, Multiples Sudoku, and the “example” puzzle that Thomas Snyder wrote for the Sudoku Grand Prix round from the United States. We haven’t featured those puzzles here yet, but the fresh logic surrounding the two-digit placements got the attention of many solvers, earning the most votes to be our best of 2022 Sudoku.

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

Here are our best Object Placement puzzles of 2021 selected from the 53 web posts in this category based on FAVE votes, web comments, and tester comments. All of these puzzles are gathered in this PDF file.

While we posted a lot of object placement puzzles this year, two styles in particular got a lot of positive attention from our solvers. Star Battle was one of those two styles and this Star Battle (Builder) from Thomas Snyder early in the year earned a best of 2021 distinction.

The other popular style this year was Statue Park where we had several puzzles (not just these next three) very close in votes. A fully antisymmetric “Checkerboards” Statue Park from Murat Can Tonta was one of our best puzzles.

The other two Statue Park puzzles that earned a top billing were posted on consecutive days and had somewhat complementary themes. First was an all black theme of “Dice Pips” by Jonas Gleim, a great visual and logical treat of a Statue Park.

The partner Statue Park puzzle posted the next day was the all white “Clean” theme from Serkan Yürekli which has a very different kind of solve without any sure object placements given at the start.

The overall best Object Placement puzzle went to another Star Battle, which is a genre that got more attention from JinHoo Ahn and Murat Can Tonta in our Star Battle 2 book released this year. JinHoo’s “Square Dance” Star Battle is another instant classic from this author, and also earned a distinction as one of the Top 3 puzzles of the whole year.

Here are our best Region Division puzzles of 2021 selected from the 52 web posts in this category based on FAVE votes, web comments, and tester comments. All of these puzzles are gathered in this PDF file.

One of our early weeks in 2021 focused on Araf puzzles and this “Oh Nine” Araf by Jeffrey Bardon showed that 2021 was going to be a good year for Region Division puzzles. Like some of our other best puzzles this year, this puzzle uses just the standard rules of a “classic” style, but it stretches those rules a bit in the visual presentation to lead to a very interesting looking puzzle as well as a very interesting solve.

While there is some debate about if Kuromasu (which uses rules similar to Cave and Four Winds) is a Region Division puzzle or a Shading puzzle, there is no debate that Swaroop Guggilam’s Kuromasu was one of the best 2021 puzzles based off the vote of our solvers. The X pattern in this grid leads to a nice interaction of clues.

The “checkered” variation of Fillomino led to another favorite puzzle in 2021, this one from Serkan Yürekli where the clues are under “Siege”.

This year had a close race between two Pentominous puzzles for the top Region Division spot. One of these puzzles, a Pentominous (Cipher) by Takeya Saikachi, was another gem from this constructor with a “Box in Box” theme.

Our best Region Division puzzle of the year goes to this unusual Pentominous by Elyot Grant that again obeys all the regular rules of the style but takes advantage of an unusual grid shape to make a “No Givens” puzzle that has a lot of different thinking to get to the one answer.

Here are our best Loop/Path puzzles of 2021 selected from the 58 web posts in this category based on FAVE votes, web comments, and tester comments. All of these puzzles are gathered in this PDF file.

Loop puzzles are another of our most full genres, with a lot of different variety in styles and clue types that are deep enough to be official styles. Combining different kinds of clues in different ways can lead to interesting Loop puzzles and this idea plays out in a few of our Best of 2021 puzzles.

First up is an “unofficial” Best of Loops puzzle from Thomas Snyder — this was a competition puzzle but got a lot of favorite votes as a Castle Wall (not even counting its separate votes as a Yajilin or a Yajilin (Castle Wall) with the same clues). As a “Triple Threat” with three ways to be solved, it has an interesting visual link across the grids, but that there is still some distinct logical depth for each of the three grids is what made it a quick favorite of our solvers.

One of our more fun books of the year was the Loop Variety Collection by Ashish Kumar and Murat Can Tonta that explored five different, less common, loop styles. This Maxi Loop from Murat Can Tonta, which gets many more examples in that book, was a best Loop puzzle for 2021.

2021 was a milestone year for one of our constructors, Prasanna Seshadri, who marked his 30th birthday and ~ten years of writing puzzles. Prasanna went a bit extreme in combining nine different loop styles from past years into a big Birthday Surprise, and it got the third most favorite votes in this category to make it another Best of puzzle.

A playful combination of the classic style Slitherlink with the object placement style Star Battle earned a best Loop puzzle distinction for this Slitherlink (Star Battle) by Serkan Yürekli.

The overall best loop puzzle of 2021 comes from Bryce Herdt, and is another playful exploration of loop themes but in combination with a shading puzzle style. This “Clockwise” Nanro Loop got a really favorable reception, and I’m sure many of the solvers were looking for even more of this original idea in the future.

Here are our best Shading puzzles of 2021 selected from the 60 web posts in this category based on FAVE votes, web comments, and tester comments. All of these puzzles are gathered in this PDF file.

Shading puzzles are one of our more full genres, with several different styles that use clues in very different ways to specify a shading task. Our Best Of Shading puzzles for this year are similarly diverse in their representation across genres and what made them “favorite” solves. First in this group is a recent Nanro (Signpost) from Grant Fikes that was visually themed around tetrominoes and had a fairly narrow but interesting solving path.

A far more difficult puzzle, a Sunday Stumper from Palmer Mebane, also got high marks. This Hungarian Tapa combines shading and number placement logic in a clever hybrid.

We had several new authors begin to contribute at higher rates in 2021, and Takeya Saikachi’s creations were consistently great. This Kurotto (Hex) puzzle themed around the five rings of the Tokyo Olympics was another of the best Shading puzzles.

A different sports tribute, this 23-themed Tapa for “MJ” by Serkan Yürekli, got the second most votes in this category for the year and is another in a long line of stellar Tapa puzzles from this creator of the style.

The best Shading puzzle of 2021, and one of the Top 3 puzzles of 2021, goes to a guest contribution from Chris Green. This Cross the Streams puzzle has a very curious visual theme with all the paired clues, and it might not seem possible like it just has one solution. Understanding what the theme implies and how some of the clues work together will open up this clever challenge.