Here are our best Number Placement 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.

Some of the best puzzles start with a simple premise, and Grant Fikes’ TomTom (Twins) that duplicates clue values — but doesn’t share those values except for the cage signs — was an enjoyable puzzle concept from last year and one of our Best of 2021 puzzles.

Another idea of duplication, this time within clue entries, led to this challenging Kakuro (Duplicate) by Thomas Snyder, “Nothing Unusual to See Here”.

2021 brought a new contributing puzzlemaster to the site in JinHoo Ahn, who constructed several of the best puzzles of the year. In this category, two of his Skyscrapers puzzles got a lot of attention. First was this easier (but unusual) Skyscrapers called “Triplets”.

Getting even more votes and tying for our best number placement puzzle of 2021 was this Skyscrapers (Cipher) puzzle also by JinHoo Ahn with a compass direction theme in the letter clues and an interesting logical path to follow as well.

Sharing the top billing for Best Number Placement puzzle of 2021 is this Japanese Sums by Prasanna Seshadri. While not yet a regular style for the site, we are seriously considering adding in this genre to the site after seeing a few creative Japanese Sums puzzles during this year including this “Stopped on the Way Back” theme with increasing number series clues.

We’ll start our Best of 2021 posts with some stats for the year.

2021 was a “full” year for us with over 320 web puzzles on the site, as well as twelve book releases including our first volumes of Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly and the Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series. All told we released over 40 hours of web content and over 80 hours of book content (based off median solve times). In past years, when I’ve been changing jobs and/or moving cities, we would have to pause the site for a bit. Now with Serkan Yürekli as managing editor we have gotten to a regular publication schedule even when my science work has been chaotic (and this past year of COVID research and trying to balance time in SF and Seattle was chaotic). So kudos to Serkan and the other parts of the GMPuzzles team for keeping us on track. I’ll have more thoughts on our progress through the year in our OKR posts in the next week.

In reviewing our favorite puzzles of the year, we will start with Sudoku which was featured in 55 webposts this year. 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.

We introduced “Sunday Stumpers” as a new concept this year and our first Best of winner was a challenging Killer Sudoku by Prasanna Seshadri, “Y Go Extra?”

A few classic Sudoku stood out during the year. While primarily needing basic steps, the narrow solving path and challenging deductions of this “Two Snakes” Sudoku by Ashish Kumar got many favorite votes.

Another variation, Killer Su-Do-Ku by Michael Rios, got even more votes of approval despite its very difficult challenge.

Our two favorite sudoku of the year both came from Thomas Snyder / Dr. Sudoku, including this “Gridlocked” Sudoku that has a really interesting collision of logical steps to tease apart the answer.

The top sudoku of 2021, as well as one of the Top 3 overall puzzles for 2021, was this “Christmas Tree”-themed Thermo-Sudoku that was part of our last official week of 2021. The visual and logical theme elements worked together in this creative construction that got a lot of FAVE votes in a very short time.

Happy New Year to our GMPuzzles fans!

For those that missed it, we just released Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 2, a collection of ninety-six puzzles across six genres: Isodoku, Kakuro, Statue Park, LITS, Cave, and Slitherlink.

This next week will again be “off” from regular puzzle posts. But we still plan to post some different kinds of content and updates. We intend to share our Best of 2021 puzzles, make some updates to Penpa-Edit, grade our 2021 Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and share our 2022 OKRs and book plans.

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.

Earlier in 2021, Thomas Snyder and Serkan Yürekli from Grandmaster Puzzles constructed a Puzzle Grand Prix round. This week we are taking a look back at those puzzles and will be adding some extra notes on the constructions here.

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Our past week of Sudoku puzzles is collected in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF.

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

We’ve recently added Penpa solving modes for all of our Pentominous and Fillomino puzzles dating back to 2013. Throughout the year we’ve gotten 1350 puzzles digitized (completed genres listed here) and had over 200,000 clicks into our Penpa puzzles. We’re hoping to keep growing that number into 2022 (500k+) and expect to have everything digitized in the next few months. There are some other recent Penpa improvements we’ll be rolling out in the next week and telling you more about. We’ll also be spending some time looking back at our Puzzle Grand Prix puzzles from Serkan and me, and then announcing our Best of 2021 web puzzles, reflecting on our 2021 objectives and key results and sharing our 2022 plan.

Our past week of Pentomino puzzles is collected in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF.

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

Our last week of puzzles for 2021 will feature Sudoku and variations.

Our past week of Nanro puzzles is collected in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. Also, we just finished digitizing all of our Nanro puzzles for Penpa-Edit solving so check out our archive.

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

We’re reaching the end of 2021 with two more weeks of puzzles. This next week features six different puzzles involving Pentominoes.

There are two more days left in our e-store sale. Any purchase of $25 or more will get a 20% discount automatically taken off at our web store. The discount applies to all of our books, including our two latest, Arrow Sudoku and Outside Sudoku, from the Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series.

Our past week of “Two puzzles, one grid” is collected in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF.

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

and there will be a Sunday Stumper (also with a second valid puzzle style like the rest of this past week) posting soon.

This next week will feature Nanro puzzles.

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.