As we start to celebrate 2014, let’s look back at some of the best object placement puzzles from the last year. This genre involves placing things into a grid, usually with specific touching rules driving the bulk of the logic. We had 39 puzzles in this genre last year, and one runaway winner for best puzzle. First, the very good (but not the very best) in the category:

Battleships (Yajilin) was one of Grant’s early contributions here and, with a set of battleship pieces in the grid as Yajilin clues was quite clever and well received. (The doubled battleships aspects of the theme pushed it into the object placement and not loop categories.)

Shipping Lanes from May was also highly rated. This Battleships puzzle was actually one of two created with this title/general theme in 2013; the other was kept for The Art of Puzzles (and if Dr. Sudoku ever gets his act together to publish this you’ll get to see it too!).

Amongst regular-sized Star Battles, Tom’s Throwing Star from September was a recent puzzle with a fair amount of favorite votes (or favourite votes, as he’d have us spell it).

The super-sized Clown from August got a good number of votes too among the Star Battles, over a quarter of the solvers who finished it marked it a favorite which is the best ratio in the category.

But the puzzle with over 50% more votes than any other, the one that certainly went most outside the box in the category, was Grant’s Star Battle (Corrupted Regions). I’m sure you had the same reaction I did to reading the rule “Each region must contain some number of stars other than 2, including possibly no stars at all” — there’s no way that will work. And then it does. It may be a one-off puzzle, but it is the Best Object Placement Puzzle of 2013.

This PDF contains the Best of Object Placement category for 2013.

We had 45 Number Placement puzzles in 2013, mostly Skyscrapers and TomTom puzzles but also other styles like Smashed Sums. While variations did rather well in some of the other categories, our favorite Number Placement puzzles were mostly “classic”.

The one exception was the Even/Odd Skyscrapers from June with only shaded and unshaded cells to get started.

Two other skyscrapers earned a lot of votes as favorites: Mostly Five, from March

and Either/Or from February.

The others that fit this category were TomTom puzzles including Triple Play from June (also one of the hardest puzzles we’ve posted):

and 1/3/13 from our very first week of puzzles.

While some categories have a clear winner, we’d need another voting parameter to actually choose a winner here. Both Either/Or and 1/3/13 are tied at the top. The five “best” puzzles are grouped together in this PDF.

(A PDF of the puzzles from week 52 can be found here.)

There will be no new puzzles this week as we look back on the first 52 weeks (and 322 puzzle posts) at GMPuzzles. Over the next six days we will be presenting our “Best of 2013” selections, using data from the FAVE button at the bottom of each post. Because of a variable number of solvers over the year, the selection process included raw FAVE counts, FAVE/solver ratios, and internal discussions when those values brought up ties. Today, we present the nominees in our toughest category (with 77 entries) of BEST SUDOKU:

Big and Small from April was a Classic Sudoku with an uncommon separation of givens that also affected the logic of the solve.

Start Small from May was a Tile Sudoku that many found to be a good pedagogical example for how to solve this style of puzzle.

Boxed In from January was a Thermo-Sudoku with an interesting visual pattern but no givens. The logical path was highly influenced by the “box” theme and many solvers appreciated the very first required deduction.

It’s Sudoku Time from December was a late nominee but a popular one. This arrow sudoku resembles a clock with just 5 givens (at 12, 3, 6, and 9) to get the solver started.

And, by absolute vote count, the favorite sudoku of 2013 is:
Jekyll and Hyde, a consecutive sudoku from February that merges that genre with non-consecutive puzzles with a half empty/half full kind of theme.

The “Best Sudoku of 2013” are all gathered together in this PDF.

Tomorrow we will announce our best number placement puzzles from 2013.

Last week’s puzzles are grouped together in this PDF.

This week completes our first year of puzzles at GMPuzzles. After this week, we will take some time out to share solving stats, discuss favorite puzzles of 2013, and offer some thoughts on what is to come for us in 2014.

First, though, here are the puzzles coming in this 52nd week (highlight to view):
Monday – Yajilin by Thomas Snyder
Tuesday – Fillomino by Grant Fikes
Wednesday – Star Battle by Thomas Snyder
Thursday – LITS by Grant Fikes
Friday – Arrow Sudoku by Thomas Snyder
Saturday – Cross the Streams by Grant Fikes

Last week’s puzzles are grouped together in this PDF. And no, there is no hidden puzzle in the names of these weekly files. I’m merely making the extensions unguessable since they are often up far in advance.

These are the puzzles coming this week (highlight to view):
Monday – Tapa by Palmer Mebane
Tuesday – Battleship/Masyu Hybrid by Grant Fikes
Wednesday – Cave by Thomas Snyder
Thursday – Thermo Sudoku by Thomas Snyder
Friday – Slitherlink (Domino) by Palmer Mebane
Saturday – Different Neighbors by Serkan Yürekli
and I promise no more than 2 Christmas trees this week!

Last week’s puzzles are grouped together in this PDF.

Another week, and more creative puzzles for all to enjoy. These are the puzzles coming this week (highlight to view):
Monday – TomTom by Serkan Yürekli
Tuesday – Cross the Streams by Grant Fikes
Wednesday – Masyu by Tom Collyer
Thursday – Arrow Sudoku by Thomas Snyder
Friday – Digital Snail by Palmer Mebane
Saturday – Fillomino (LITS) by Grant Fikes

Last week’s puzzles are grouped together in this PDF.

As we roll into December we expect to have a few treats for you here at Grandmaster Puzzles. These are the puzzles this week (highlight to view), with more gifts to come:
Monday – Fillomino by Grant Fikes
Tuesday – Nurikabe by Tom Collyer
Wednesday – Skyscraper (Sums) by Thomas Snyder
Thursday – Tapa-like Loop by Serkan Yürekli
Friday – Star Battle by Thomas Snyder
Saturday – Sudoku +/- 4 by Palmer Mebane

Last week’s puzzles are grouped together in this PDF.

This week will have a few more “regular” puzzles than the rest of November, but still some of the variety that we hope you have become thankful for over this year. And for the first time in a few weeks we will have all of our contributing puzzlemasters providing puzzles (to whom I am especially thankful for helping to grow GMPuzzles into an even more incredible site). Highlight to view the schedule:
Monday – Cross the Streams by Grant Fikes
Tuesday – Masyu by Tom Collyer
Wednesday – Sudoku by Thomas Snyder
Thursday – Battleships by Thomas Snyder
Friday – Easy as Japanese Sums by Serkan Yürekli
Saturday – Hexa Briquets by Palmer Mebane

Last week’s puzzles are grouped together in this PDF.

This week will have a few surprises and a few less familiar puzzle types. Here are the puzzles you can expect from Monday to Saturday this week (highlight to view):
Monday – Cave by Grant Fikes
Tuesday – Letter Pairs by Palmer Mebane
Wednesday – Sudoku by Thomas Snyder
Thursday – Trid by Serkan Yürekli
Friday – Pentomino Puddles by Serkan Yürekli
Saturday – Neighbors by Palmer Mebane

Last week’s puzzles are grouped together in this PDF.

We’ve been having some harder puzzles recently, particularly as the number of new types (including WPC practice puzzles) has been high. This week will probably be no different and has certainly tested as having harder than usual puzzles on many of the days. Here are the puzzles you can expect from Monday to Saturday this week (highlight to view):
Monday – LITS by Grant Fikes
Tuesday – Sudoku by Thomas Snyder
Wednesday – Pentomino Coral Variation by Palmer Mebane
Thursday – Tren by Serkan Yürekli
Friday – Graffiti (Loop) by Serkan Yürekli
Saturday – Pentomino Coral Variation by Palmer Mebane