Here are our best Number Placement puzzles of 2016 (excluding Sudoku which is treated as its own category). We posted 28 Number Placement puzzles on the web throughout the year.

2016 saw the official addition of Kakuro to our puzzle makeup with a lot of good puzzles. This Kakuro (Double) puzzle from Grant Fikes with a Cloverleaf pattern earned a fair number of votes.

Dr. Sudoku added a Sudoku-like unique digit theme to this Hundred puzzle, a style originally created by Vladimir Portugalov. While the style has simple instructions, the intended logical path in this puzzle requires a deduction we haven’t seen in a Hundred puzzle before.

A lot of our best of puzzles this year were part of our patrons weeks, where our authors made requested puzzles from our super grandmaster patrons. This Multi-Skyscrapers variation by Serkan Yürekli tied for the most votes in the category.

Our best Number Placement Puzzle of 2016 was another Kakuro (Double) puzzle from Serkan Yürekli which we posted near Valentine’s Day. More Double Kakuro (and other doubled puzzles) will be in the Art of Puzzles 2, including several more gems from Serkan.

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

Theme: Sevens

Author/Opus: This is the 142nd puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.

Rules: Standard Skyscrapers Rules, with two grids at the bottom to solve. The top grid indicates the sum of the digits in the bottom two grids in the corresponding positions.

Answer String: For the rightmost grid, enter the 4th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 4:00, Master = 6:30, Expert = 13:00

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Skyscrapers. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Skyscrapers to get started on. More Skyscrapers puzzles can be found in The Art of Puzzles.

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

Theme: Going Up Again?

Author/Opus: This is the 252nd puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Variation of Skyscrapers rules. The numbers outside the grid represent the sum of the buildings seen in the row or column. For example, if a row is 12534, the clue from the left would be an 8 (1+2+5) and from the right would be a 9 (4+5).

Answer String: Enter the 3rd row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 4th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:45, Master = 4:30, Expert = 9:00

Solution: PDF

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

PDF

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

Theme: The Clueless Center (for patron Veep)

Author/Opus: This is the 123rd puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Serkan Yürekli.

Rules: Standard Skyscrapers rules. The grid is made of 9 overlapping 5×5 Skyscrapers puzzles. The clue cells shared between grids must see the same number of buildings (i.e., you should fill in all interior gray cells with clue numbers as these are used by two grids).

Answer String: Enter the fifteen digits (in the white cells) within the marked rows from left to right, separating the two rows with a comma.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 20:00, Master = 35:00, Expert = 1:10:00

Solution: PDF

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

Here are our best Number Placement puzzles of 2015 (excluding Sudoku which is treated as its own category).

Creating a complete puzzle taxonomy is challenging. Here at GMPuzzles we limit ourselves to just five logic puzzle categories, but that means our “number” placement term may seem a misnomer when you see logic puzzles with letters or words like our first winner here. At GMPuzzles, whenever a transformation of letters into numbers or other symbols could leave a fundamentally identical puzzle, we consider “Number Placement” to be the proper categorization. That said, this recent Scrabble variant from Murat Can Tonta — despite not yet having a lot of solvers — got a lot of Faves in December.

Our remaining “best” puzzles in this category are more obviously number placement puzzles; all received approximately the same number of votes. First is a classic Skyscrapers puzzle from Tom Collyer with a great solving path.

This Skyscrapers (Sum) variant by Thomas Snyder, part of a New Year’s week highlighting 2014 –> 2015, also received a lot of votes.

Finally, this Kakuro (Hex) from Serkan Yürekli was another of our best Number Placement puzzles of 2015.

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

Theme: Logical (inspired by a 2015 USPC puzzle by Craig Kasper)

Author/Opus: This is the 2nd puzzle from guest contributor Dan Katz.

Rules: Enter the digits 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 into the grid so that each digit (and one empty square) appears exactly once in each row and column. Numbers outside the grid are either Easy as ABC or Skyscraper clues: either the clue is the first digit that appears in the corresponding row or column from the direction of the clue, or it is the number of digits in the corresponding row or column that can be “seen” from that direction (higher digits block the view of lower digits).

Answer String: Enter the letters in the marked rows in order from left to right, separating each row’s entry with a comma. Use a capital X for empty cells.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 5:00, Master = 8:45, Expert = 17:30

Solution: PDF

Note 1: This puzzle is much harder than a usual Tuesday puzzle.

Note 2: Follow this link for other classic Skyscrapers and this link for variations on Skyscrapers puzzles. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Skyscrapers to get started on.

PDF

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

Theme: Logical

Author/Opus: This is the 81st puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.

Rules: Standard Skyscrapers rules.

Answer String: Enter the 2nd row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 7th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 5:15, Master = 7:45, Expert = 15:30

Solution: PDF

Note: Follow this link for other classic Skyscrapers. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Skyscrapers to get started on.

PDF

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

Theme: Middle Numbers (Originally for the 2015 Polish Puzzle Championship Online Qualifier)

Author/Opus: This is the 29th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Tom Collyer.

Rules: Standard Skyscrapers rules.

Answer String: Enter the 2nd row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 9:00, Master = 18:00, Expert = 36:00

Solution: PDF; a solution video is available here.

Note: Follow this link for other classic Skyscrapers. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Skyscrapers to get started on.

PDF

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

Theme: 2014 to 2015

Author/Opus: This is the 213th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Variant of Skyscrapers rules. Each clue represents the sum of the heights of the visible buildings in that direction. For example, if a row is 12534, the clue from the left would be an 8 (1+2+5) and from the right would be a 9 (4+5).

Answer String: Enter the 1st row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th row from left to right.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 3:15, Master = 4:45, Expert = 9:30

Solution: PDF

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

Because of the mainstream popularity of Sudoku (née Number Place) and its variations, we’ve kept Sudoku separate from the rest of the Number Placement category historically. But due to this split, both Sudoku and Number Placement are our smallest categories, each with 34 entries this year. Today we are announcing our best Number Placement puzzles of 2014:

TomTom puzzles add some math onto the Latin Square frame familiar from Sudoku, and one of our Toms wrote the best classic TomTom of the year. This “Count-Up” puzzle from Tom Collyer started the year off well:

Skyscrapers is our other major Number Placement genre at the moment. This Sums Skyscraper by Thomas Snyder, “Going Up?”, received a lot of faves. Is there something to puzzles with “up” themes getting highly rated this year?

We’ve only posted one Ripple Effect puzzle on this site, but it was a rare gem from Grant Fikes and very highly rated.

Our two best number placement puzzles were both “new” TomTom variations. John Bulten, a guest contributor to GMPuzzles, came up with a rather original “clueless” TomTom:

In the end, the highest rated Number Placement puzzle (and one of three puzzles that tied for FAVES for Puzzle of the Year) was the TomTomTom by Thomas Snyder, his 200th contribution for the site:

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All of the Best Number Placement puzzles of 2014 are collected in this PDF.