or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Totally Twisted: a challenging grid shape
Rules: Standard Sudo-Kurve rules.
Answer String: Enter the “row” marked A, followed by a comma, followed by the “row” marked B.
Time Standard: Sudo-Kurve Grandmaster = 9:00, Master = 15:00, Expert = 30:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Advice on solving this puzzle has now been posted in “Ask Dr. Sudoku #7”
(View image directly for larger form.)
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the composite Yajilin mode where left click marks cells, right click marks dots in cells or X’s on edges, left click+drag draws lines.)
Theme: Block Party — repeated clues in each corner.
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the shaded segments from left to right for the marked rows, starting at the top. Separate each row’s entry from the next with a comma.
Time Standard: Tapa Grandmaster = 4:30, Master = 7:30, Expert = 15:00
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Happy Valentine’s Day – a heart of given numbers inside a heart-shaped grid.
Rules: Standard Sudo-Kurve rules.
Answer String: Enter the “row” marked A, followed by a comma, followed by the “row” marked B.
Time Standard: Sudo-Kurve Grandmaster = 4:00, Master = 6:15, Expert = 12:30
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the composite Yajilin mode where left click marks cells, right click marks dots in cells or X’s on edges, left click+drag draws lines.)
Theme: Greek Cross
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the shaded segments from left to right for the marked rows, starting at the top. Separate each row’s entry from the next with a comma.
Time Standard: Tapa Grandmaster = 1:30, Master = 4:30, Expert = 9:00
Editorial Note: The solving path on this puzzle is quite narrow to start, but it is recommended that you find it instead of randomly guessing.
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: A simple start: a Sudo-Kurve with just three regions.
Rules: Standard Sudo-Kurve rules.
Answer String: Enter the “row” marked A, followed by a comma, followed by the “row” marked B.
Time Standard: Sudo-Kurve Grandmaster = 0:45, Master = 1:20, Expert = 2:40
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the composite Yajilin mode where left click marks cells, right click marks dots in cells or X’s on edges, left click+drag draws lines.)
Theme: A little of everything — clues from 1 to 8 exist in value-mirrored (9-x) symmetric locations throughout the middle of the grid.
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the shaded segments from left to right for the marked rows, starting at the top. Separate each row’s entry from the next with a comma.
Time Standard: Tapa Grandmaster = 0:45, Master = 1:15, Expert = 2:30
Solution: PDF
No real news this week. I’m moving away from San Francisco, so this week and next will be pretty brief Doctor’s Note-wise.
This coming week contains Tapa and Sudo-Kurve puzzles. As I’ve never posted a *classic* Tapa puzzle despite writing several, I needed to make a new example worthy for posting tomorrow on the Rules page. This example (about Wednesday difficulty) is a bonus puzzle for today, and there will be three more Tapa puzzles throughout the week.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the composite Yajilin mode where left click marks cells, right click marks dots in cells or X’s on edges, left click+drag draws lines.)
Theme: Quadrants
Rules: Shade some squares black to create a single connected wall. Numbers in a cell indicate the length of consecutive shaded blocks in the neighboring cells. If there is more than one number in a cell, then there must be at least one white (unshaded) cell between the black cell groups. Cells with numbers cannot be shaded, and the shaded cells cannot form a 2×2 square anywhere in the grid.
Answer String: Enter the length of shaded segments, from left to right, in each of the indicated rows. Separate each row’s entry from the next with a comma.
Time Standard: Tapa Grandmaster = 1:00, Master = 2:00, Expert = 4:00
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between Sudoku entry modes and a shading mode to mark off clues.)
Theme: Almost all in order – two double 1-9 digit pangrams and two single 1-9 digit pangrams are on the outside of this grid.
Rules: Standard Outside Sudoku rules.
Answer String: Enter the 5th column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 9th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: Outside Sudoku Grandmaster = 6:15, Master = 10:15, Expert = 20:30
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Countdown!
Rules: Standard Skyscrapers rules.
Answer String: Enter the 8th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 1st column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: Skyscrapers Grandmaster = 5:15, Master = 8:00, Expert = 16:00
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between Sudoku entry modes and a shading mode to mark off clues.)
Theme: A series of series (and a constant and a square) — The seemingly random numbers outside the grid actually have some rhyme and reason.
Rules: Standard Outside Sudoku rules.
Answer String: Enter the 7th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 4th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: Outside Sudoku Grandmaster = 5:00, Master = 7:00, Expert = 14:00
Solution: PDF