[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): My first experience with Deficit Sudoku, originally from Wei-Hwa Huang and named “Udoku”, was at the second World Sudoku Championship in Prague. By the time we wrote the style into our Mutant Sudoku book, we had renamed the variation to Deficit Sudoku. This theme recalls a special challenge Wei-Hwa made in that first set using the digits 0-9; in this case, I could make a similar think outside the box theme with just 1-7, keeping the 7 as an unseen number.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Not Your Standard 6×6 Sudoku! An homage to my favorite (10×10) puzzle from the original “Udoku” set of Deficit Sudoku by Wei-Hwa Huang.

Rules: Standard Deficit Sudoku rules, with numbers from 1-7.

Estimated Difficulty*: 2 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:00, Master = 2:00, Expert = 4:00

Solution: PDF

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): Slitherlink has a simple rule set but an amazing amount of patterns and other deductions that flow out from it. Across this week I wanted to make some puzzles that were both visually elegant but also slowly went from common patterns to less common or rarely seen patterns.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools in edgex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)

Theme: Parquet

Rules: Standard Slitherlink rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 1.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 0:40, Master = 1:15, Expert = 2:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for classic Slitherlink and this link for Slitherlink variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Slitherlink puzzles to get started on. More Slitherlink puzzles can be found in The Art of Puzzles, Slitherlink and Variations, and our beginner-friendly book Logic Puzzles 101.

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): This rough Battleship Sudoku is a bit of a mind twister, at least until you carefully consider both how the fleet gets placed and what is special about the values across the boats. It is a quintessential example of the Battleship Sudoku that were in my first (and long since out-of-print) book that I might republish someday.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between number placement, ship placement, and shading modes. The shading mode in gray, which numbers can be written on top of, may work better than default ship placement.)

Theme: Twister

Rules: Standard Battleship Sudoku rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 4 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 5:45, Master = 10:30, Expert = 21:00

Solution: PDF

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): This final “classic” Battleships puzzle in fleet week highlights another unusual grid with lots of small clue values limiting the columns. Some crafty logic will get you through to the finish.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between ship placement and shading modes. In ship placement mode, right click gives sea, left click gives circle/square, left click and drag for rounded ships.)

Theme: The Bermuda Quadrangle? The missing radar clues will complicate the solve.

Rules: Standard Battleships rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 3 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:30, Master = 6:30, Expert = 13:00

Solution: PDF; advice on solving this puzzle was also posted in “Ask Dr. Sudoku #8“.

Note: Follow this link for classic Battleships and this link for Battleships variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Battleships to get started on. More Battleships puzzles can be found in Battleships and Variations, in The Art of Puzzles, and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): This unusual Battleship Sudoku starts with all four of its submarines given. It is left as an exercise for the solver to figure out if that makes placing the other ships (with their labeled numbers) any easier.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between number placement, ship placement, and shading modes. The shading mode in gray, which numbers can be written on top of, may work better than default ship placement.)

Theme: Four Islands

Rules: Standard Battleship Sudoku rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 3.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:45, Master = 9:00, Expert = 18:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Advice on solving this puzzle was posted in “Ask Dr. Sudoku #8“

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): While computer-generated Battleship puzzles may encourage more trial-and-error-type solving, I find that with good themes and uses of clues you can make fully logical battleships puzzle that are even more interesting. In this case I played off an “all 2” set of clues to limit the ships in one of the two dimensions in an unusual way.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between ship placement and shading modes. In ship placement mode, right click gives sea, left click gives circle/square, left click and drag for rounded ships.)

Theme: Just Try Two Find Us

Rules: Standard Battleships rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 2.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:00, Master = 2:45, Expert = 5:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for classic Battleships and this link for Battleships variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Battleships to get started on. More Battleships puzzles can be found in Battleships and Variations, in The Art of Puzzles, and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): My very first book from Sterling Publishing (their name at the time) was Battleship Sudoku, taking one of my livejournal puzzle ideas and turning it into a full-sized book. While the combination is simple in its rules as other Sudoku variations more commonly featured here, I found I could write a lot of interesting puzzles by slowly placing sets of numbers into the grid via the outside clues. The future “Shape Sudoku” style would be motivated by seeing how placing groups of numbers all at once (maybe with rotations) from the fleets worked very well to hide different sudoku deductions.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between number placement, ship placement, and shading modes. The shading mode in gray, which numbers can be written on top of, may work better than default ship placement.)

Theme: Even Steven; the fleet has only certain kinds of numbers.

Rules: Standard Battleship Sudoku rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 2 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:30, Master = 2:15, Expert = 4:30

Solution: PDF

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): Battleships is one of the few “classic” puzzle styles we feature to come from the Southern Hemisphere, in this case Argentina and Jaime Poniachik and other members of his magazine editorial team. With this small but a little bit challenging Battleships grid we launched “fleet week” on GMPuzzles.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between ship placement and shading modes. In ship placement mode, right click gives sea, left click gives circle/square, left click and drag for rounded ships.)

Theme: Rising or Falling? Patterned digits in the rows.

Rules: Standard Battleships rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 1.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 0:50, Master = 1:30, Expert = 3:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for classic Battleships and this link for Battleships variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Battleships to get started on. More Battleships puzzles can be found in Battleships and Variations, in The Art of Puzzles, and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): I created this unusual layout for a Sudoku puzzle for the Sudoku Cup several years before re-using the pattern here. The twisted geometry plays a really key role in the logical solving path which means that the difficulty of the puzzle will depend on if you’ve ever solved a sudoku on this grid shape before.]

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Totally Twisted: a challenging grid shape

Rules: Standard Sudo-Kurve rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 4.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): 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“

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top (original post here): The first week of Tapa puzzles ended with this large challenge where the size as well as different clue patterns set up the “block party”. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the challenge of getting all the way around this tightly packed grid.]

(View image directly for larger form.)

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: Block Party — repeated clues in each corner.

Rules: Standard Tapa rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 3.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:00, Master = 8:00, Expert = 16:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for classic Tapa and this link for Tapa variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Tapa puzzles to get started on. More Tapa puzzles can be found in The Art of Puzzles, in Tapa and Variations 1, 2, and 3, and in our beginner-friendly books Intro to GMPuzzles and Starter Pack 2: Tapa, all by Serkan Yürekli.