Fillomino and Cave are the two major Region Division styles we have here at GMPuzzles, and 2013 saw 39 puzzles across this space. The favorites here span the calendar year.

Standard Fillominoes formed many of your most favorite puzzles. While it was one of the more recent puzzles, Grant’s 28-dice opus #8 received a good ratio of fave votes to solves.

In July, after Palmer debuted as a contributor here, his seventh puzzle with an Antisymmetric Ones theme received your votes.

And perhaps because of the challenge (our hard puzzles seem to be more favored than our easier ones), Squeeze Play from March also made the final cut.

These two cave puzzles slightly edged out Fillomino at the very top this year though. Almost Perfect 10? from our initial release of Cave puzzles got high marks.

But the Region Division Puzzle with the most votes was this Cave (Product) variation from early April. We’ll certainly see if we can provide more of this Product variety in the future.

You’ll find all these puzzles grouped in this PDF.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: 28 Dice (Opus #8 in Grant’s series with 28 1-6 clues)

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Start with the 4th row, followed by a comma, followed by the 7th row.

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

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

(view image directly for a larger form)

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing, a number entry mode, and shading for this variation.)

Theme: Symmetry and Logic

Rules: Variation of standard Fillomino rules. All polyominoes of same size besides 4 cannot touch. But all tetrominoes must be connected to form a valid LITS solution. All 4 clues have been replaced by tetromino letters.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. For the tetrominoes, instead of numbers use capital letters (L, I, T, S) in the appropriate cells. Start with the 10th column, followed by a comma, followed by the 14th column.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 12:30, Master = 18:00, Expert = 36:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: 2×14 Dice (Opus #7 in Grant’s series with 28 1-6 clues)

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Start with the 7th column, followed by a comma, followed by the 8th column.

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

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

Today’s surprise comes from Nikolai Beluhov, a graduate student of mathematical logic who has been sharing some creative puzzle ideas with me recently. Some of them have ended up on his new puzzle blog Puzzled By Titles. This puzzle has become a Sunday Surprise.

Much like a set of Matryoshka dolls, this Fillomino is a puzzle with many layers. Remove the outer border and a new valid Fillomino arises. Keep doing this all the way down to the very center where a 2×2 puzzle awaits. The layers have a wide variety of difficulty and required logical strategies. Can you solve them all?

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: Matryoshka (nesting property) across 5 puzzles

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each puzzle from largest (10×10) to smallest (2×2), enter the numbers placed in each cell along the upper-left to lower-right diagonal in order. Separate each puzzle’s entry by a comma (Your answer will be of the form AAAAAAAAAA,BBBBBBBB,CCCCCC,DDDD,EE).

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: 28 Dice (Opus #6 in Grant’s series; also the first one with no border clues.)

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Start with the 6th column, followed by a comma, followed by the 10th column.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:15, Master = 1:45, Expert = 3:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: Lambda

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Start with the 7th row, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th column.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:30, Master = 4:00, Expert = 8:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: 28 dice again: opus #5 in Grant’s series with just 28 “dice” givens.

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Start with the 5th row, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th row.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:20, Master = 2:00, Expert = 4:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: 28 again: opus #4 in Grant’s series with just 28 “dice” givens. (See here and here and here for the earlier puzzles).

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Start with the 5th row, followed by a comma, followed by the 5th column.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:15, Master = 3:00, Expert = 6:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: 28 “dice”, opus #3. (See here and here for the first in Grant’s 28-given series of Fillominoes).

Rules: Standard Fillomino rules.

Answer String: For each cell in the marked rows/columns, enter the area of the polyomino it belongs to. Start with the 5th row, followed by a comma, followed by the 5th column.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:15, Master = 2:00, Expert = 4:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Fillomino and this link for more variations on Fillomino puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Fillomino puzzles to get started on.