hutt's puzzle dump

 2025 was a very ambitious year for me. I'm especially proud of Puzzletober and mostly proud of the mystery and larger project which were completed back in spring and summer. I enjoy having lofty goals to work towards, though sometimes I worry about biting off more than I can chew. I wonder how that bar is set. My original plan for the Christmas puzzle was to make a 45x45 grid composed of 81 5x5 plots that needed to be placed in the right locations and then divided into 37 zones, each with a different ruleset inspired by a prompt on the calendar, the entirety of which would be traversed by a directed network of looping carolers who could band together, split up, and sometimes cross paths. I got about halfway through writing the rules before realizing it was too complicated even for myself. Instead, I poured the extra energy into making puzzles for my family as presents; every family member received two puzzles I thought they'd enjoy that hinted towards a location to find scraps...

 I got the opportunity to visit a Japanese gardens today. Remembering the origin story of Isowatari, I tried to come up with a new genre idea while I was there. This genre was directly inspired by karesansui, but doesn't really reflect its symbolic patterns, so I pivoted when naming it by supposing that regions could be more laminar or turbulent. I think the ruleset is a bit like if Reductionism  spilled into  Tonttiraja , but I think it manages to be distinct from both. It tends to be loose but allows overcompensating by having large regions with small numbers; the third puzzle is probably the best example of what I was originally going for with the association. Rules: Draw lines between the centers of cells and/or from a cell's center to the grid edge. Lines never branch, cross, or have dead ends within the grid. All and only the cells in the grid without circles must be passed through by a line. Numbers reveal the amount of different cell contents within their region, ...

 These puzzles were created on the 23rd and 24th. I originally intended to create a 45x45 puzzle incorporating all the advent genres from this year into one interlocked enigma, but it was so daunting even to me that I scrapped it early. I'll discuss the details in the monthly update. Instead, I've made my special Christmas puzzle small, as a treat. To compensate, I've also included a couple 5x5s for each of the other genres today. https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?lapaz/5/5/h1g2u2g.h https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?lapaz/5/5/..g..g2g.g..g..0i...g../ https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?sendai/5/5/4nllqj5cg12g5g https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?sendai/5/5/400l301o3i https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?roma/5/5/raiq53tmf4a3c5c4a1e1 https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?roma/5/5/98iqkftme2a35g31a2e To Bethlehem Rules: Further divide the grid into regions to solve it as a Sendai-Miyagi, which uses the corner numbers as clues. Then, solve the grid as a Roma. Gray numbers reveal the amount of times that the path from its...

 The former bears some nostalgia because I recall seeing a barebones version in some puzzle books in my youth. The traditional version doesn't have the row or bank constraints and only states that each number is the sum of the two below. Naturally, the version I was familiar with was more of an exercise in prealgebra than a nuanced logic puzzle. The amendments present in the advent ruleset flesh it out into something more challenging. Pyramid Climbers is in the same boat as Exercise: a genre that was debuted at a tournament and somehow didn't catch on despite featuring what is to my knowledge a completely new idea to paper puzzles. Although the name and ruleset imply that the puzzle is solved going upwards, I suspect the logic more often involves working downwards. Pyramid Puzzle Square JP Page Pyramid (6 wide, 1-9) Pyramid (7 wide, 1-4) Pyramid Climbers Puzzle Square JP Page Pyramid Climbers (7 wide) Pyramid Climbers (8 wide)

 I've solved a few of each genre before today, but this is my first time constructing either, despite the fact that the former is relatively well-established. I find that Shikaku tends to flow quickly due to how the anchored rectangles need to fill the space, making it difficult to set a hard one, whereas Knossos tends to flow slowly due to how unconstrained the clues seem without considering theory, making it difficult to set an easy one. I admire how different they feel to solve despite considering two fundamental aspects that correlate with region size, although maybe this is due to Knossos not being about rectangles. Geometrically speaking, I would've preferred if these puzzles were assigned tomorrow and tomorrow's puzzles were assigned today. 23, unlike 24, cannot be a base Knossos clue. Furthermore, 24 is highly divisible, whereas 23 is a decently large prime, making 24 versatile and 23 unwieldy as a Shikaku clue. The cherry on top is that 12x23 happens to be a triang...

 This genre reminds me of Cave from its clues, Nuribou from its block styles (Ca-ribou?), and Guide Arrow from the unshaded constraint. The combination of forcing shaded squares in areas with lots of unshaded squares and further forcing each shaded square to be in a rectangle with an area of at least 2 causes this genre to be explosive at times, though this does permit some interesting connectivity logic with the shaded masses as a whole. https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?cityspace/5/5/2i2p2l5h https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?cityspace/12/12/2j2i2ncg-16zx2zj5zi5t2g5w5 https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?cityspace/12/22/i5j2i2p5j.h.zz2p2gch-16h-14h-19u5l.zl5p2zj5p2zzn.p..p./