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#A50: Tapa - Laurel

I found this year's advent calendar to be both a good challenge and a neat learning experience for me. This puzzle is my second advent capstone. Since last year's had several nonunique elements within it, I really hope (but cannot guarantee at the moment) that my Christmas gift this year has only one solution. That would be a Christmas miracle! Regardless, I had lots of fun making it, and I hope it's just as fun to solve! Laurel: https://tinyurl.com/2xod85us Solve the grid in its entirety as a Tapa, where each question mark stands for a single piece of a clue. Additionally, each 5x5 (or in one case 10x5) section contains variant rules that may change or override clues, add additional constraints to their local shading, or even add a second layer of input type: 1. Christmas Lights This section, being composed of shaded and unshaded cells, must be solved as an Akari. Clues may be shaded, turning them into Akari clues instead of Tapa clues. 2. White Elephant For the clues, rep...
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#A49: LITS (Classic, SLICY, Double, Inverse LITSO)

 I'm glad I wrapped up the megapuzzle yesterday because I spent practically all day working on these. LITS is a fairly common puzzle type in online databases despite not being present in any puzzle books that I can think of, other than Nikoli collections. The ruleset is very versatile, allowing for minimums, maximums, impossible patterns and forced connections and disconnections between regions, all without number-oriented clues. https://puzz.link/p?lits/12/12/pk9tmd3i1j00g081cucun4jokp8651hm6vhg3s0007vqso4690ue60 https://puzz.link/p?lits/12/12/ki9nnrkjo10007hbp9f0602840g2qp04l3fqvvv51g7k5e343vv670 SLICY shows that transferring the rules of LITS onto a hexagonal grid shakes up the logic more so than most other shading puzzle types. I find that vertices matter more than long-distance connections, compared to LITS. https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=6x6x1&SIE=3ERERERDR7EREREUERDWDWDWD49ERDRE17ULULUL&G=slicy https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=8x8x1&SIE=15EU...
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#A48: Lohkous

 I like how naturally the length constraints lead to regions with interesting flow patterns. https://puzz.link/p?lohkous/6/4/a12b23b24s https://puzz.link/p?lohkous/12/12/b1a2d1a23c2a1l12l1w1f12m23e23a12k1a12k12l1a1l12c12a12c12b2c
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#A47: Statue Park

 I like how Statue Park can have a nice guided flow to it through local and connectivity logic while also allowing for full-on dissection-like puzzles. The ability to choose a shape bank when setting allows for both small and huge grids and the exploration of both simple and complex shapes. https://puzz.link/p?statuepark/12/12/101o4006101c20508i2l00000000592f0i03592f60105a2f//d https://puzz.link/p?statuepark/12/22/q0i0e000000002i0q2i000000000000000000009003000000i000000600i0020000000000000003060000002/10/35b4n/35sv7/355lk/35sv7/35sv7/355lk/35sv7/35vvv/35sv7/35mu9
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#A46: The Longest

 This might be the only puzzle type on the calendar that I was actually somewhat scared of setting. I like the solving logic, but the elegant simplicity of cluing makes creating a puzzle really hard. I expect to be busy for most of today, so I've only decided to make one puzzle. I found this grid on my seventh attempt at making a small themed board, and I think I managed to make it flow well through my usual style of setting despite a hunch that the easiest way to set might be to work backwards from a simple solution. https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=6x6&SIE=6RRRDDLLLDDRRR4RR22UU10UUUUU&G=the-longest
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#A45: Hidato

 Hidato seems a lot more approachable and controlled than knight's tours, but it can still get difficult with puzzles that require holistically planning connections and finding crossings. I'm not too familiar with this genre, so both puzzles I managed to set today are small and relatively easy. https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=5x4&L=(12)3(20)4(2)3(4)6(16)3&G=hidoku https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=5x5&L=(1)4(16)1(2)4(20)6(12)2(24)3(8)3&G=hidoku The megapuzzle for Christmas Day is going well and I expect it to be ready on time. I'll probably release it automatically at 9:00 AM in my timezone.
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#A44: Multiplication Link

 Of course this puzzle type was scheduled for a day that was a relatively large prime number! Multiplication Link reminds me of Balance Loop in that both puzzles require turning on the numbers and allow selecting from a range of possible segment length pairs, although, by merit of having more fine-tuned options, Multiplication Link feels like a better idea than the hypothetical Addition Link due to requiring a lot less clues to make interesting puzzles. https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=21x7&L=(24)0(19)3(12)3(4)27(6)11(12)7(12)44(6)7(4)11(24)27(12)6&G=multiplication-link https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=12x12&L=(12)0(1)7(1)16(1)3(12)7(2)2(1)5(1)9(1)5(1)9(1)4(1)4(9)12(9)7(9)20(2)9(4)12(24)1&G=multiplication-link
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