[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top: Our second week of puzzles started with Nurikabe — a style originally published by Nikoli which is a company that has influenced me and many other puzzle constructors a lot. I expect my inspiration for this first Nurikabe on the site was a lot of diagonal neighbor pair puzzles on Nikoli.com and trying to do some Nikoli-style construction in this genre before pushing to my own, fairly different themes by end of the week.]

PDF

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

Theme: Twin Islands

Rules: Standard Nurikabe rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 2 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 0:45, Master = 1:30, Expert = 3:00

Solution: PDF

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

(I was intending to start some more 2023 planning thoughts here today including a bonus sudoku, but I haven’t had power at my home due to recent weather since last night. For now, enjoy the first Smashing the Sudoku I released yesterday on YouTube.)

(Update Jan 9, 2023 morning: I did get power restored last night, but effectively lost a lot of momentum on this project while I worked on others. So we’ll start again next weekend, life permitting; stay well!)

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top: Just as I mentioned three days ago repeating prior Sudoku themes when I get back into writing in a puzzle style, “Rhyming clues” is one of the five or so “canonical” TomTom theme ideas I’d explore time and again in books like the original TomTom Puzzles. This last puzzle of our 2013 intro week is such an example although did not resolve as cleanly in the middle as other gems I’ve unearthed during TomTom exploration. I’m very hopeful that 2023 may finally be the year to revise and expand the original TomTom puzzles book I wrote in 2009, since it has been out of print for awhile.]

PDF

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

Theme: “Rhyming clues” – almost all clues here in this TomTom are presented with identical neighbors.

Rules: Standard TomTom rules. Range is 1-8.

Estimated Difficulty*: 4.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 9:00, Master = 15:00, Expert = 30:00

Solution: PDF and solving video.

Note: Follow this link for classic TomTom and this link for TomTom variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest TomTom to get started on. More TomTom puzzles can be found in our e-store, including in the TomTom collection, 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: Looking back at past work can show some of the interesting changes with time. For instance, our original GMPuzzles posts like this one from our first week of puzzles used more of a “conversation title/theme” which slowly became just short phrases — or no theme when it was just logical over the years. (Other very obvious updates will include removing the solving arrows, changing solving time standards, and adding in difficulty ratings — we have not tried to make any of those changes this week and have the most stripped down versions of the post here with the goal you might go back to the original.)
There is something refreshing to find after reading that “an exclusively logical theme will be revealed during the solve”. I just went through the puzzle again and found it, but then I have the unfair advantage of better knowing how to read my younger mind. I wonder when I’ll run into a puzzle where past me outsmarts current me.]

PDF

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

Theme: Besides symmetry, an exclusively logical theme that will be revealed during the solve.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 3.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 5:00, Master = 7:30, Expert = 15:00

Solution: PDF and solving video.

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in our e-store, including in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 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: This repost from 2013 shows its age as it was a date-themed puzzle, but it might have been the most memorable TomTom in that week because of some less typical logic I found to embed around the repeated numbers. This is where, as a constructor, taking on a rigid theme can force you to explore different kinds of thinking to get to one answer. Yes (highlight to read light spoilers), 13 is always go to be a sum, and 3 is more flexible which will be important, but how do you make some 1’s stand out? The puzzle became the first in our short-lived “Ask Dr. Sudoku” blog post series, a clear inspiration for our future YouTube channel videos. It became harder to keep writing as if I was inside the constructor’s mind when I wasn’t a constructor, but if there is any kind of content this look back is making me want our team to find a way to share more of in 2023+, it is stories like this puzzle, your experience solving it, and then clicking through to the Ask Dr. Sudoku post and seeing how I tell it back — a connection of the solver to the constructor you can’t find easily in any other place.]

PDF

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

Theme: TomTom for 1/3/13; there are also a few interesting and unusual logical deductions to be found.

Rules: Standard TomTom rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 3.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:30, Master = 6:15, Expert = 12:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for classic TomTom and this link for TomTom variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest TomTom to get started on. More TomTom puzzles can be found in our e-store, including in the TomTom collection, 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 about the creation of this puzzle originally on the site ten years ago: Several people have commented to me through the years on the look or feel of a “Snyder Sudoku” — the main example when I think of my own style is something I might share as a new/bonus puzzle on Sunday, from a competition setting and the theme is 100% hard logic right at the start. But other meanings for Snyder Sudoku are about the look of the puzzle standing out too, with esoteric but visually interesting themes far beyond just symmetry — like segregating digits or repeating exact shapes multiple times (like on the cover of The Art of Sudoku four times). When I was constructing the three sudoku for this week initially in 2013, I wanted to make callbacks to different memorable sudoku styles I’d used before in my livejournal days and in this case copied an earlier “missing digit?” idea of mine, with a new composition in the series.]

PDF

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

Theme: Missing Digit? (opus 2); this avant-garde sudoku poses the question “Is there a 5 in the grid or not?” It is similar to an earlier work by Dr. Sudoku first displayed at the Silicon Valley Puzzle Festival where a different digit, 8, was missing in the same way.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Estimated Difficulty*: 3 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:30, Master = 6:00, Expert = 12:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in our e-store, including in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 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: We continue our start to 2023 by looking back at our site’s initial puzzle weeks, which balanced Sudoku variations with the ten puzzle styles that would be in The Art of Puzzles. Puzzle #2 was a TomTom, a very special puzzle style to me given how much fun I had experimenting with it in 2009 as I took a mostly computer-generated genre to new places.]

PDF

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

Theme: “After #1, what’s next?” Many people wondered what would come after post #1 yesterday. Today’s TomTom puzzle is one literal answer, but who knows what the future actually holds?

Rules: Standard TomTom rules; use digits 1-5.

(Estimated*) Difficulty: 1.5 stars

Time Standards* (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 0:40, Master = 1:20, Expert = 2:40

Solution: PDF

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

*This is trying to recreate our 2020+ type ratings but where our original testing process and number/identity of testers in 2013 was not the same as how we standardized later on in our first year. We’ve made a best effort to bring these historical data to current methodology because people asked for it, but your experience may vary and we aren’t doing “new” testing to reconfirm these times.

[This is a repost from our archives with new notes at the top: As we focus more on website updates and other changes to GMPuzzles — more details to come — we’re starting this year off by looking back at some of our earliest puzzles. Our first new construction when we launched in 2013 was a “Countdown to 2013” Sudoku. Enjoy it again — or for the first time — with digital solving options not available originally.]

PDF

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

Theme: Countdown to 2013 – this theme is primarily visual, unlike Dr. Sudoku’s earlier Countdown sudoku theme here.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

(Estimated*) Difficulty: 2.5 stars

Time Standards* (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:15, Master = 4:00, Expert = 8:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in our e-store, including in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

*This is trying to recreate our 2020+ type ratings but where our original testing process and number/identity of testers in 2013 was not the same as how we standardized later on in our first year. We’ve made a best effort to bring these historical data to current methodology because people asked for it, but your experience may vary and we aren’t doing “new” testing to reconfirm these times.

A ten-year update to our first puzzle post ever.

Solve our logo puzzle online by clicking here or download this PDF to solve offline (go back to the original post for solution tracking).

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A few stats for our past decade of puzzles:

Longer form thoughts follow, including some introspection:
(more…)

While we are still closing out 2022 here on the west coast of the US, we wanted to wish a Happy New Year to those already in 2023 and those who soon will be.

We’re closing out the year on a great note with the release of our Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly Volume 6, with 60 puzzles across Sudoku, Kakuro, Parking Lot, Nanro, Snake Pit, and Round Trip styles. This is our 17th collection published in a busy 2022, and you can see all the books listed by release date here or can search for favorite puzzle types in our e-store directly.