I’m not really satisfied with the execution, but eh, what the hell.
My brain can only function at so much of its full capacity when it’s a
few kilometers up in the sky.
This is a
Triple
Back, variant on
MellowMelon’s
Double Back. Briefly, draw a closed loop through all square centers
visiting each bold-outlined area exactly three (= ⌊π⌋) times. Shaded
cells do not influence solving, only aesthetics.
At least one person wants me to post. I’m not even going to try do a
life summary. It’s too hard. Let’s just say:
-
right now, my blog drafts contain a backlog of ~7500 words and counting;
-
I was not accepted as an MIT Admissions blogger, which is bad because my
blogging will continue to not reach a large audience, but good because
my blogging will continue to not reach a large audience. Maybe it had
something to do with the fact that, because the application form
wouldn’t let me submit without any media, I panickedly cranked out the
following puzzle in an hour or so to attach.
CLICKBAIT PERSONALITY TEST THAT YOU CAN DO WITHOUT SOLVING THE
PUZZLE: What do you see in the puzzle image below? I have my own
thoughts but I won’t bias you by posting them yet. Sound out your
thoughts in the comments below! (I don’t expect this to work but I’d
love to be proven wrong)
Okay so apparently how puzzles work is I go nearly a year without
posting one and then when I post a terrible one, I feel guilty and
obligated to post a legitimate one soon after. Testsolved by
chaotic_iak.
This is a Fillomino (write a number in every empty cell so that every
group of cells with the same number that is connected through its edges
has that number of cells) where each tetromino has had their 4s replaced
by one of L, I, T, or S describing their shape, and they obey the rules
of LITS — they can touch if they are not congruent, they must all be
connected, and their squares cannot form a 2×2 block. In addition, cells
separated by a thick border may not contain the same number or
letter.
5:27 PM phenomist: do you use gridderface to make
pretty puzzles?
…
5:52 PM phenomist: actually nvm excel is probably
easier lol
Okay I’m sorry this is a horrible puzzle where the rules don’t make
sense and I didn’t even get it testsolved. I just wanted an image to
concisely demonstrate the capabilities of
gridderface, my
puzzle marking and creation program, for the project homepage, after
somebody expressed interest in using the program to write a puzzle. Then
I got tremendously carried away.
As requested, a puzzle post! Straight from the WTF-variant
department. Quite hard.
This is a
Fillomino,
with the additional constraint that for each polyomino, there must
not exist a path (i.e. a sequence of cells, each orthogonally
adjacent to the next) that includes each of the polyomino’s cells
exactly once (and does not include cells outside the polyomino).
As a degenerate case, 1-ominoes are banned as well.
Edit 11/19 7:23 AM UTC+8: Fixed some transcription errors on right:
R4C17 is D instead of N, and R15C17 is G instead of E.
Neither change should greatly impact solvability. Thanks to ksun for
pointing out an error.
Logic puzzles are easy to construct if one doesn’t have some specific
pattern or theme in mind. It’s just that, given the increasing number of
constructors and puzzles with amazing themes, I don’t think it’s very
meaningful for me to just construct more puzzles of the same genres by
putting down clues randomly. That’s why, for my seventeenth birthday, I
took the puzzlehunt route and made something without instructions that
is not completely solved by logical deduction. Still, I’ve provided all
the information needed to do this puzzle initially, so I hope my not
getting the inductive bits test-solved can be excused.
I’m extremely satisfied — a little incredulous, in fact — with how
this puzzle came out.
chaotic_iak labels it
the “most ridiculous fillomino ever in history”. Apparently, it’s rather
tricky.
ETA: Journalistic responsibility compels me to mention that chaotic_iak
also added, “might be beaten later”. Oops?
This is a
Fillomino
combining the
Nonrectangular
(polyominoes can’t be rectangles) and
Walls
(polyominoes can’t span thick lines) variant rules. I think the first
variant first came from mathgrant; I’m not as sure about the second, but
they both appeared in
Fillomino-Fillia
2, at least.
Write a number in every empty cell so that every group of cells with
the same number that is connected through its edges is a shape that’s
not a rectangle with that number of cells. In addition, cells separated
by a thick border may not contain the same number.
Oops, I forgot the “puzzles” category was semi-reserved for puzzles I
constructed/wrote, because among other things an LMI bot is following
it. Anyway, if this makes up for anything, I have a puzzle that I’ve
procrastinated posting for very, very long.
This is a
Fillomino
puzzle. Inequality signs in the grid must be satisfied by the two
numbers they touch.
![Informatix [MUMS Puzzle Hunt 2013]](/img/informatix.jpg?w=300)
So, I somehow managed to
get
25 points all by myself in
MUMS Puzzle
Hunt 2013. Well, I pestered chaotic_iak a little with
3.3
Diagnosus (.html with animated .gif) but we still didn’t recognize
all the Pokémon until hint 3, at which point Google sufficed for me.
This is nowhere near the top, but compared to the usual results of
whatever AoPS team I form, it’s amazing. By far the best result of AoPS
was on CiSRA in 2010 (46th with 58 points), before I discovered puzzle
hunts in AoPS; unfortunately due to people getting older and the influx
of younger and younger people to the fora, there are less possible
teammates each year and they have less time, so here I am by myself.
(Also I could have accepted an invitation from a guy in the
some-form-of-Elephant team, but I figure if you can win two MUMS hunts
in a row you don’t need any more people.)
All in all: Yay!
I survived midterms.
This is a
Slitherlink
mutant. Draw a loop through adjacent vertices that cannot intersect
itself. Each number indicates how many of the four edges around it are
drawn. In addition, each pair of colored squares in corresponding
positions (e.g. R1C1 and R6C6, R2C8 and R7C3) must have an equal number
of edges drawn around them (i.e. if there were numbers placed there,
they would be equal).