Our most recent variety mix of puzzles, including 2 for Pi Day, is in this PDF.

This coming week features Nanro puzzles. Our subscribers will also be receiving a bonus Nanro by Grant Fikes and a Nanro (Star Battle) by Serkan Yürekli as well as access to puzzle solutions. Our Grandmaster subscribers are also receiving a new Skyscrapers e-book that will be available in our e-store later in the year. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Our most recent mix of Sudoku puzzles is in this PDF.

This coming week is a variety mix of puzzles across several styles, including some fun guest contributions. Our subscribers will also be receiving a bonus Masyu by Grant Fikes and a Tapa by Prasanna Seshadri, access to puzzle solutions and a puzzle walkthrough video. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Our most recent mix of Battleships puzzles is in this PDF.

This coming week will feature Sudoku variations. Our supporters will also be receiving a bonus (Classic) Sudoku by Thomas Snyder and a Thermo-Sudoku by Thomas Snyder and access to puzzle solutions. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Bonus note: Our early Star Battle Sudoku (one of the best sudoku in 2018) was recently highlighted with a solving video on the Cracking The Cryptic channel on Youtube. If you like solving videos like these, become a subscriber and see more from Dr. Sudoku himself.

Our most recent variety mix of puzzles from the Toketa authors is in this PDF.

This coming week will feature Battleships puzzles. Our supporters will also be receiving a bonus Battleships (Loop) by Serkan Yürekli and a Classic Battleships (with 15 ships, up to 1×5) by Thomas Snyder and access to puzzle solutions. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Our most recent week of Kakuro puzzles is in this PDF.

For the second time, we are featuring a special variety mix week from several of the Japanese authors who make the Toketa book series (link to PDF from 2017’s Toketa week). We will have three different variations — primarily new puzzle styles from the most recent volume — with two puzzles each over the week. Toketa Volume 6 came out at the end of last year, and played its own special role in my winning the World Puzzle Championship (link to my long report).

Our supporters will also be receiving a bonus Battlestar by Grant Fikes and a Snake Pit by Serkan Yürekli who also contributes to Toketa, access to puzzle solutions, and a video walkthrough of the Friday and Saturday puzzles. Last weekend, our grandmaster supporters also received three large bonus puzzles: a Kakuro by Hatice Esra Aydemir, a Tapa LITS Distiller by Grant Fikes, and a Crisscross by Grant Fikes. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Our most recent week of Yajilin puzzles is in this PDF.

Our next week features Kakuro puzzles. We have also just posted the last two sections of The Art of Puzzles 2 to our e-store, include a Kakuro and Double Kakuro section, and a Spiral Galaxies and Double Spiral Galaxies section.

This week, our subscribers are getting early access to the full week of puzzles, and images of the puzzle solutions. Master+ subscribers to the site are getting a bonus Kakuro by Serkan Yürekli and a Kakuro (Nonconsecutive) by Grant Fikes. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Our most recent week of Fillomino and Fillomino (Cipher) puzzles is in this PDF.

Our next week features Yajilin puzzles.

This week, our subscribers are getting early access to the full week of puzzles, and images of the puzzle solutions. Master+ subscribers to the site are getting a bonus Yajilin by Grant Fikes and a Yajilin (Double) by Murat Can Tonta. And within the last couple weeks our grandmaster level subscribers have received the last two parts of the book The Art of Puzzles 2, Kakuro and Spiral Galaxies, which will be released here later this month. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Click this link for a collected PDF with all of our “Best of 2018” puzzles can be found here.

Our first week of 2019 features Fillomino and some Fillomino (Cipher) variations.

This week, our subscribers are getting early access to the full week of puzzles, images of the puzzle solutions, and a video talkthrough of the Saturday puzzle. Master+ subscribers to the site are getting a bonus Fillomino by Thomas Snyder and a Fillomino (Even/Odd) by Murat Can Tonta. If you want to become a subscriber and get access to bonus puzzles, solutions, e-books, and other rewards, check out this page.

Here are our best Sudoku puzzles of 2018, selected from the 42 web posts in this category:

Visually distinctive puzzles were an important part of the top Sudoku from 2018. While posted in our last week of 2018, this Christmas Tree Sudoku by Thomas Snyder (that combines Sudoku with the popular Star Battle style) got a lot of FAVE votes in a rather short time.

While we have been avoiding “Pi” puzzles for a long time here — some of us assert there is a more fundamental mathematical constant around 6.283 — having some new editors involved on the web led to our first full week of “Pi” puzzles in March and some others later in the year. Two Pi sudoku stood out including this Consecutive Sudoku from guest contributor Fatih Kamer Anda.

Another prize goes out to an Arrow Sudoku from Murat Can Tonta.

The best sudoku of 2018 goes to another Pi-themed puzzle, a Thermo-Sudoku by Serkan Yürekli with an incredibly elegant arrangement of its givens that still leads to a fundamentally interesting logical solve.

Here are our best Number Placement puzzles of 2018, selected from the 50 web posts in this category:

We haven’t had many puzzles from Palmer Mebane recently (in part it seems he mostly constructs for World Puzzle Championship preparation), but this WPC prep puzzle — Skyscrapers (with Sum Baskets) — has a very elegant logical solving path that our solvers appreciated.

Regular contributor and grandmaster Grant Fikes shared this Kakuro (Gapped) puzzle that also earned a good number of FAVE votes.

Murat Can Tonta won another best of award for this Thermo-Skyscrapers combination which, like some prior examples, avoided needing to give any given numbers to get its logical solution going. The presence of only three short thermos outside the grid was a cute new twist on this style.

Our runaway winner in the category though, and the runner-up for Best Puzzle of 2018, was this TomTom (Mystery) written by Thomas Snyder as his 300th post here on the site. [Breaking third-person self reference:] While I haven’t had the chance to write as many puzzles this year, focusing more on editing, it was great to receive recognition from so many of you for this milestone puzzle.

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