To [guess], or not to [guess], that is the question:

Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer

The [Twists] and [the Turns] of outrageous [Logic],

Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,

And by [guessing] end them….

We’ve had a fair number of lively discussions in the last week, and if nothing else has come out of them at least the comment threading on the site is now noticeably improved. One question that has come up a lot has been around which puzzles need guesswork, here and elsewhere. A lot of solvers, for the sake of speed perhaps, will say they “had to bifurcate” during a solve here, but that has never been required for our puzzles. This week I wanted to (briefly) state my opinions on what I consider to be “logical” puzzles, since I mention frequently that all puzzles will have a single solution that can be reached by logic alone and it is worth contributors and solvers knowing what I mean by that.

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In addition to FoxFireX’s incredible sudoku gift that he made for someone’s birthday (some puzzles are meant to keep more private), we got three other submissions for our first Hidden Contest. We’re posting them here in increasing order of difficulty.

First up is an “Anti-Symmetry” Nurikabe from Giovanni P. where every clue that is odd/even has an even/odd clue in the corresponding symmetric place. Standard Nurikabe rules are all you need for this challenge.

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Next up is a real RARITY for this website, a Shakashaka. For the general rules, we’ll direct you to Nikoli.com where the puzzle originated. Here, Bryce Herdt has made a cipher version of the puzzle. The letters AIRTY each stand for a different number from 0 – 4 which the solver must determine.

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Finally, the hardest of the bunch, is an intriguing variation called “Sudoku Slitherlink” by its designer Scott Handelman. In addition to standard Slitherlink rules, a different number from 0-3 must go into each green cell. No number in a green cell can repeat in that row or column. As Scott warns, this is one of the hardest puzzles he’s constructed and, from his original post, he’s “still kinda shocked that the middle just kinda ‘works'”.

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All of these puzzles are grouped in this single PDF.

If you enjoy these puzzles, please comment here and say so, thanking each of the authors. As contest entries, these didn’t go through editorial review (except making sure there was a single answer), but we found them all quite interesting and worthy of being some of the first puzzles from other authors to appear on this web-site. We’re considering keeping Sunday open for “guest” submissions each week from new puzzle authors. And once we get through a stack of puzzle submissions for The Art of Puzzles, more authors will be appearing throughout the week too.

For the last couple weeks Sunday has been a day where we’ve seen a huge increase in page views, strictly because a new hint was released for the site’s first Hidden Contest. This led a few dedicated solvers to scour the site again looking for something out of place.

This Hidden Contest was an experiment in having “other” puzzle styles here; I’m a huge fan of puzzle hunts and secret codes and the like and was curious to see if my more observant solvers would catch onto something odd.

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I hope you enjoyed the first week with Grant Fikes contributing puzzles. Grant will be a regular author in the future, and has already sent in a lot of outstanding puzzles for The Art of Puzzles. While his best puzzles and his largest puzzles (sometimes one and the same) will be saved for that publication, a lot of fine leftovers will still end up here on a weekly basis. In other words, if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen here you’ll be amazed by what is in the book. Still, if you’d like to see some “Giants” from Grant, please check out the three he released last weekend 600 (LITS/”Tetra Firma”), 601 (Shakashaka/”Proof of Quilt”), and 602 (Norinori/”Dominnocuous”).

Who will our next Contributing Puzzlemaster be and when will his or her puzzles first appear? Only time will tell. For now I wanted to announce that the weekly release schedule will be going through a few changes. Since I have been publishing Sudoku and puzzles in five other genres (object placement, number placement, loops, shading, and region division), for most weeks going forward there will now be one puzzle in each of those six areas. Every other week will have a change in types (for example Masyu this week, Slitherlink the next) so there will be some balance in what gets posted. Over time, the genres will cycle through each day of the week so that easier and harder puzzles of all styles appear. That’s the basic plan, but there may be a few other surprises in store.

Finally, since a small number have been asking for more hints on the hidden contest (which remains undiscovered), and since I’ve not been responding privately for the sake of fairness, now seems a good time to narrow the hunt somewhat. While there have been a lot of posts here, from Doctor’s Notes to solving tutorials, this site is primarily about the puzzles. Somewhere in those 60 posts is what you need to find the “+1 puzzle” and possibly win a free book.

Regards, Dr. S.

PS: There will be no “Ask Dr. Sudoku” this week, but if you have any questions you would like answered in a future column, or past puzzles that have appeared here that were not covered that you would like some more insights on, this is the time to inquire. Going forward, I intend the “Asking” to be more active and cover just about anything (from puzzle that use baskets to NCAA tournament brackets). Solving/construction tutorials are interesting, but are not meant to be the only kind of topic.

Tenth in a series with puzzle solving tips. This time with advice on Fillomino puzzles and hidden polyominoes.

Fillomino is one of my favorite puzzle styles, in part because it is one of the few where I think the author’s touch can come across in the puzzle in so many different ways. In the set of Fillominoes I’ve gotten from different authors, I think I can pick out some authors from others just based on how much they use visual patterns, one-option polyomino growth, crowding, counting, how well they conceal hidden pentominoes, and so on. While having a variety of puzzle constructors will improve most sections of The Art of Puzzles, Fillomino is hands-down in my mind the one where having many authors will have the greatest effect on quality.

I wanted to talk about one of my own constructing trends which I learned this week after writing 7 Fillomino puzzles (only a few that went online; some are going to GAMES and others are being saved). That is what I’ll call the “known unknowns”. The picture you should have in your head when considering a choice based on the hidden polyominoes you’ll leave behind. The contradictions in the “known unknowns” are the basis for the Saturday Fillomino.

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When I originally was planning to launch the site, I had a 60+1 puzzle roll-out in mind. In this puzzle set, I would introduce many of my styles from the past, particularly sudoku, and also write a lot of styles I’m planning to publish in the future. All of those roll-out puzzles have now been released, even if I only have recorded solvers for the 60 announced puzzles and none so far for the +1. That “puzzle” is not at all hard to solve once you find it, but that’s the challenge!

I’d love to hear your feedback now that the full set is released on which were your favorite puzzle types or even your favorite puzzles, so I can consider how to focus going forward. Which type(s) that did not occur would you like to see in the future? The Art of Puzzles will feature challenges in five general genres: Number Placement (TomTom and Skyscrapers), Object Placement (Battleships and Star Battle), Shading (Nurikabe and Tapa), Region Division (Fillomino and Cave), and Loop (Masyu and Slitherlink). And — while this is commercially risky in many people’s minds — it will have no Sudoku puzzles at all. So over the coming weeks, there will be fewer (but not zero) sudoku puzzles on this site as the puzzle styles in The Art of Puzzles get even more focus. And there may finally be a few variations on puzzles, but I won’t be publishing variations until the sequel!

I’ve gotten some questions about how I can keep up with posting so many puzzles every week. Well, I plan to take a little time off now. I have not written any puzzles for this week. But I hope you still visit to solve the puzzles that are here that you might not yet have completed — or found — and anything else that might pop up too. This is the end of the beginning, but the next chapter will be even more incredible.

Ninth in a series with puzzle solving tips. This time with advice on Slitherlink and loop puzzles in general.

Even if you had a good time on the TIME Slitherlink, the following walk-through might offer you some new tips — besides just memorizing Slitherlink patterns — to get better at loop puzzles.

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I wanted to start this week by reintroducing this site for readers who may be visiting for the first time after reading a TIME magazine feature on the US Puzzle Team this week. Grandmaster Puzzles is the home to a range of logic puzzle types that may be familiar to you or completely new. I recommended that you start with the familiar, like Sudoku, and then move onto the new; every puzzle has a link to some rules and history that should help you get started. The puzzles get harder throughout the week so starting with the Monday/Tuesday tagged puzzles is a good way to sample the site too.

This is the last week in my 10-week “introduction” phase as I showcase puzzles in the last remaining style for The Art of Puzzles (Fillomino) and also bring you another view of sudoku from my past. While I intended this week to be the end of the first contest period at Grandmaster Puzzles too, with the indicated number of entries each getting a signed copy of one of our books (some spots remain), I am considering leaving the contest open until even more submissions have come in.

As we reach the end of the beginning, maybe it is time to reminisce a bit. Grandmaster Puzzles was a dream born in 2007 at the 2nd World Sudoku Championship to have a domestic source of quality logic puzzles. US magazines then primarily used, as today, computer-generated puzzles and mostly seemed to know that sudoku exists but nothing else. I knew something better could be made, and I suspected there were puzzle authors out there hungry for a place to submit their creations instead of just putting them up for free on the web. While it has taken some time to get off the ground, as other puzzle writing tasks and real-life have crowded out starting a puzzle publishing company, the pieces are clearly coming into place now. Having sampled some of the really excellent puzzle submissions I’ve been getting for The Art of Puzzles recently, I know that this dream will soon be accomplished. All that remains is to grow the audience of puzzle lovers aware of how amazing hand-crafted puzzles can be!

– Dr. S

Eighth in a series with puzzle solving tips. This time with advice on battleships puzzles, particularly missing clues and subs.

Solving Battleships is an odd experience for me. I think I want to enjoy them, but I’m not sure I ever really do very much. See, they were the first logic puzzle type I ever grew to love. But that means they also became the first logic puzzle type to bore me, and I’ve now been in the “bore me” stage for over half my life. And there is so much sameness in the Battleships you can find in the world right now. ~99% are randomly generated, ~99% give all of the outside clues which limits the challenge, ~99% solve by placing the largest ship(s) in the only possible spots and being good at bookkeeping of seas afterwards. As a member of the puzzling 1%, I am looking for something more. This week I tried to vary the formula a bit to make some more interesting — or at least different — puzzles.

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So last week was a week at sea for the solvers with Battleships and Battleship Sudoku. It was also my first week at SEA(ttle). And while it already feels like home I have a lot of apartment set-up to do still, and a growing pile of work as I take time to buy and build furniture.

My most observant solvers may have noticed I’ve been following particular genres in YRBGW order so far with my puzzle styles. If you don’t know what I mean, search the website a bit more. But I hate being predictable. I wrote a championship “Trophy” sudoku puzzle once with a first row ?2345678?. My occasional partner in puzzle-solving crime, Wei-Hwa Huang, saw that pattern and thought it was as likely that I would do 923456781 in a competition as 123456789 just to be sneaky. This week, I’ve decided I’ll just flip a coin to determine what I’ll post of the remaining options so you can’t possibly know better than 50:50 what puzzle type is coming. Or maybe that last sentence is a lie. Or maybe every other sentence in this paragraph is a lie. In all honesty, there are no hidden puzzles in this paragraph. But there are two more puzzle styles to come this week: a familiar sudoku style from me and Wei-Hwa, and whichever of “heads” or “tails” wins the coin toss today.

This week I’m going to start hiding the solving times behind a spoiler tag. I don’t know how choosing to see these times before starting will affect your solving, but I’d welcome a discussion on how times, or “points” on a competitive test, change your solving style. Does this differ when you have hand-crafted puzzles with a particular time goal versus, say, a generated croco-puzzle with a particular time standard set from other solvers?