This morning I applied a large update from the penpa-edit gmpuzzles branch to our GMPuzzles site. This includes a set of new contributions from Swaroop Guggilam (swaroopg92), but also now some meaningful theme improvements from Dave Millar (davmillar). I’m excited to see how far the tool has come since we adopted it at the start of 2021, and these updates are a sign of more things to come.

1) Website look: The visual theme has changed (both at css and html level) which also sets Penpa-Edit up to have more responsive design. Note that we at GMPuzzles have not done our own steps to try to customize the light/dark themes for GMPuzzles site yet, but I like starting the new year with an updated visual design.

2) Responsive design: The default tool position is still at the top of the screen. But in Settings you will now find two options to move tools to left or right for better utilization of space on different screens. There will be more changes like this in the future. (Update: primarily for laptop/computer users right now = 850+ pixels wide, but gives sign for future design updates that could be possible.)

3) Local storage feature: There have been some comments that the solver accidentally refreshed the page or closed the tab and lost all solving progress, so a local storage feature is now implemented. If you refresh the page or accidentally close and reopen the solving puzzle again, your progress will be recovered. To clear it there are multiple ways. This includes “Delete all” button at bottom of puzzle or, in Settings, going to “Local Storage: Clear this puzzle” and then refreshing the page. The default setting of this option is ON, but it can be set to OFF through “Settings” and it will be turned off globally for all puzzles.

4) Initiated Smart Checking: This is a step forward for Penpa-Edit to have some of the solver support elements of other tools. Our Sudoku puzzles (which are the style for this week) will now show you in red when you have placed a digit in a row/column/box that violates constraints. Also, in Nonconsecutive Sudoku (but only fully Nonconsecutive Sudoku), there will be a marking if two adjacent digits are consecutive to break that anti-rule. These sudoku checks are not yet on for less common Sudoku styles (Tight Fit / Battleship / Outside / Isodoku / …). There should be more of these smart checks to come in the future, and this is an area where interested open-source coders that want to contribute to Penpa-Edit can help out in different genres. The method is likely to export common puzzle style data into JavaScript, apply solving checks to the data, and return back any conflicts. Contact us if you are interested in this kind of coding effort (we are able to reimburse for some of the open-source development here to improve these tools for all, while improving them for GMPuzzles, particularly if it is for prioritized improvements we have on our feature list).

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Please tell us how you like these changes, and also tell us of any bugs/issues that arise as you work through our current and back catalog.

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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. A very good example of this kind of Penpa-Edit interactivity is the “Instructionless Grid” app that launched last year — and is a very fun if hard challenge for those that haven’t seen it. While it uses manual entry mode to trigger writing state back to the user account, it is not far off how our automated solution checking could act on such code. I haven’t figured out all parts of who/how we get to these updates, but am working on scoping out that plan this quarter.

Coming in just before the end of 2021, we’re releasing our second quarterly mix of puzzles. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 2 comes in at over 150% the size of the first volume, with a total of ninety-six puzzles across six genres:

– 12 Isodoku and 4 Isodoku (Consecutive Pairs)
– 12 Kakuro and 4 Kakuro (Hex)
– 12 Statue Park and 4 Statue Park (Half and Half)
– 12 LITS and 4 Easy as LITS
– 12 Cave and 4 Cave (Product)
– 12 Slitherlink and 4 Slitherlink (Sheep and Wolves)

As you’d expect from us, this collection includes a set of really elegant puzzles from twenty-one of the world’s best authors. We’re already working on volumes 3 and 4 (planned for publication in March and June of 2022) and will have more info on 2022 book plans and possible subscription options in the coming weeks for all of our 2022+ books. For now, we wish you a Happy New Year and hope you consider purchasing this excellent collection of logic puzzles as a way to start 2022 off in a great way.

We’re excited to announce that from now through the end of next Monday, December 6th, any order of $25 or more will get a 20% discount automatically taken off at our web store.

We’re also excited to share the two latest books in our Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series, Arrow Sudoku and Outside Sudoku, each with 25 elegant hand-crafted grids from some of the world’s best Sudoku constructors. If you are not using the above Cyber Monday discount, note that buying any two MSM books and adding the code MASTERPIECE will result in a 10% discount.

After many years of publishing elegant, hand-crafted puzzles across multiple genres in focused e-books and one-off collections, we have decided to start a more regular quarterly publication where every 3 months we will feature selections from six different categories of puzzles. Today marks the release of Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 1, which has 60 total puzzles split across these genres:

– 7 Sudoku and 3 Killer Sudoku
– 7 TomTom and 3 TomTom (Different Set)
– 7 Star Battle and 3 Star Battle (Isometric)
– 7 Tapa and 3 Tapa (Line)
– 7 Fillomino and 3 Fillomino (Non-consecutive)
– 7 Yajilin and 3 Yajilin (Regional)

We are already pretty far along in preparing volume 2, which will be even larger than the first volume, and we are continuing to consider additional features to put into this recurring series over time. So please try out this first volume, and then share any feedback you have so we can continue to make a great quarterly publication.

At the end of the year (at the release of volume 2), we expect to offer some options to subscribe to this series of books to receive them at a discount.

In The Art of Sudoku by Thomas Snyder and The Art of Sudoku 2, GMPuzzles has featured masterful collections of classic sudoku and their variations.

We’re kicking off a new series Masterpiece Sudoku Mix where every few months we will release two new collections of ~25 sudoku in a given style. These puzzles will be masterpieces of visual and logical style, written by some of the best puzzle designers in the world. Our first two books feature Even/Odd Sudoku and Thermo-Sudoku, and are available for purchase now on our store. If you purchase both books, you’ll receive a 10% discount at checkout.

Just released to our e-store is this TomTom collection. Our puzzlemasters Ashish Kumar, JinHoo Ahn, Murat Can Tonta, and Serkan Yürekli have worked together to create 63 incredible hand-crafted challenges. Your mind will need to stretch a lot to solve the 42 classic TomToms, 20 variations (4 each in 5 different styles), and the giant TomTom (Samurai) puzzle that concludes the book. If you enjoy mathematical and logical challenges, this book will be perfect for you.

2021 continues to be a year of transition and growth for GMPuzzles. Having brought Serkan Yürekli on-board as Managing Editor last year, and getting more support from the rest of our team, we’ve had the opportunity this year to focus on several different parts of our publishing business. At the start of the year I set our some objectives and key results for GMPuzzles. While this was just a set of internal targets, I wanted to write today to share our goals with our audience, suggest how we think we are doing, and get your feedback on anything more we need to be doing to meet our objectives.

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Throughout 2021, we are working to have our older catalog of puzzles updated to have digital solving options and to also have solution PDFs everywhere.

On the PDF front, we have recently added another 18 months of solutions to the site and currently have answers for all puzzles posted going backwards to February 2016.

We are also now taking individual puzzle types and putting them all into Penpa-Edit to enable digital solving. The first puzzle style we have completed is Kurotto and all 27 of our prior Kurotto have digital versions with automatic solution checking online. We will eventually “reintroduce” these puzzles with a better set of “How To” videos, a curation of our favorites, and a better web-flow than just blog pages for solvers who want to binge on one of our styles. For now, if you want to try more of this shading puzzle style please click through the Kurotto archives.

Finally, a lot of people have been asking about our solving widget (i.e., FAVE/SOLVE button) that has had login issues for several months due to browser security updates as it was hosted externally. We are nearing completion of an update to host this ourselves, and will share another update here at the end of the month. With the solving tracking, online solving, and other solutions coming together we hope that the solving experience for GMPuzzles in 2021 is greatly improved. Please share your feedback with us on how we can do even better.

Thanks to the great support of Swaroop Guggilam, we have already updated our Penpa-Edit beta to have new solving functionality for Star Battle. In addition to the left click on a cell to place a star, and right click (or right click and drag) to mark X’s, you can now right click on an edge or corner of a cell to place a dot clue. Putting in a star in a cell touching a dot will make the dot go away so your notes clean up after themselves. You may need to clear downloaded files from your browser cache to get the latest version of the solving interface to show up, but we hope you enjoy this improvement as much as we do.

While there was nothing “wrong” with our first solving video for the Pinwheel puzzle, it used some trickier steps than it needed to. So we made a new YouTube video to highlight the new solving interface tool for Star Battle, as well as a simpler path to get around the Pinwheel:

Our plan is to release at least 1 new e-book each month in 2021. Our first release is a really great title: Araf by Serkan Yürekli, with more region division puzzles like we just posted this past week on the site.

This book is a full exploration of Araf from Serkan, with lots of clever puzzles and Aha moments. There are a total of 50 hand-crafted puzzles, including 12 puzzles across three variations and a giant Araf at the end. Check it out now in our e-store.