hutt's puzzle dump

 I think it went well again this year. Of course mistakes were made; such is inevitable. However, whereas last year's puzzles were typically more creative and convoluted, I tried to interweave this year's puzzles as best as I could. For example, Puzzling relied on Inferno and Blast, which itself was a remix of Arctic, and the concepts of minesweeper adjacency and path length run throughout. Perhaps I overused the general logic puzzle, but I can try to justify it as practice for the meta. As for my drawings, I can be proud of Mustache, but the rest were admittedly lackluster. I tried to compensate by framing the drawings, which was often a creative exercise in itself. I can at least claim with certainty that I did better with the narrative. I'm glad I gave myself the head start because it let me piece things together with the level of nuance I was hoping for. I'd been marinating on the twist ending probably since mid-September but I only decided on a satisfying conclusio...

Fourteen months have passed since that day. Victor and Dan sit at an oaken bar and reminisce about what happened afterward. Victor says, "It really is a miracle that we can still make S.O.S. calls out here. I didn't trust John completely, what with his one-sided 'stache and dilapidated hairstyle, but the police found the exact amount of money I reported missing in an indiscreet bag in the car after intercepting it along the road... and a confession was made, so I can't complain. The thief hasn't come back and I haven't been stolen from since." "Things are looking up," says Dan, raising his glass in a solitary toast. "Since we've gotten all this tourism. Evidently, some newsgroup received a story about the case from an anonymous source and people from nearby states just had to see the 'Hotel Drywall'." "Yes," says Victor, "but less and less people are wanting to stay there, especially now that we're buildin...

It is roughly noon on the first day of November. The patrons have checked out and all but two of the rooms are vacant. In the suite labeled with the number one, someone awakes with a start. He had stayed up late trying to make sense of all the information that had been given to him. After all, he had an obligation. On his bedside table is an old flyer turned upside-down. Many words are written on it, but there are several blanks. He knows how to fill them in. As swiftly as he can, he clutches the flyer and ambles over to the room at the end of the hall. The door is unlocked; he goes into the connected bedroom and finds the innkeeper and the clerk lost in sorrow sitting on the bed. "I even barricaded the door," says the innkeeper. The newcomer anxiously scans the room for a writing implement and, not finding one, decides to explain it as he goes. "I think I know who did it. Let me read my statement from the beginning." Rules: Solve the mystery. Each bracketed section...

And the locks were an interesting development, thinks the newcomer as he sits in his room eating the emergency chocolate. But there's something else weighing on his mind. It may have seemed tangential, but it felt important nonetheless. He studies the commemorative scarf he was gifted upon returning from the cabin. The embroidery seemed to embellish a random pattern, but he begins to notice a structure. One here, two there; skip one, two, or four. Is it a code? He remembers the discrepancy, and something about Samuel... and suddenly everything clicks. Once he is certain the scarf contains harmless information, he writes a message to its maker using the code. He needed to express that he'd learned his lesson. Rules: Decode the message. (It is recommended to find an efficient method of doing so.) BWBWWWWBWBBWWBBWBBWWWWBWBWBWWBBWBBWBBWWBWBBWBWWBWBBWBWWBBWBWBBWBBWWWWBWBWBBWBWWBBWBBWBBWWBWBBWBWWWWBWBBWBWBWWBBWBWBBWBBWWBWBWWBBWBWWBBWBBWBWWWWBBWWBBWBBWBBWWWWBBWBWBBWBBWWBBWBBWBBWWBWBWB...

The newcomer asks the innkeeper about the doors upstairs. He says, "The numbering system is straightforward enough. The two deluxe suites are opposite each other, and the clerk's room is opposite the maid's. The patrons tend to stay in the same rooms each year, leading every room to be mildly personalized. For example, all nine suites upstairs are painted a different color. Was there something else you wanted to know?" "I assume you use warded locks since you don't have electrical systems here." "That is correct, yes. I am aware of the security risks.  I am at least confident that neither the patrons nor the staff know how to pick locks.  Customers are required to turn in their keys when checking out, so I'd know if anyone tried to replicate my skeleton key. I don't believe the clerk or maid have lost their keys either, so I know I have the only one." "But these keys are short. You ought to ensure that your lock system isn't as...

After they drop off the slightly burnt rug in the event room, Ande announces he is going to get a bite to eat. The newcomer follows several of the patrons behind a curtain in the kitchen into the storage room. The walls are lined with shelves stocked with several foods intended to last a while when frozen. While the newcomer ponders what to try, Roger grabs a pack of jerky, Blaise retrieves a processed meal from a top shelf, and Waverly takes a canister of French onion soup. He eventually settles on a bag of bite-sized chocolates. He makes sure to save one for later in case he needs to stay awake. Rules: Solve every grid as a Choco Banana puzzle simultaneously. The grids are concentric squares that share any cells and clues within them. penpa link (no answer check)

The bedsheet smothers the fire before it can spread to the wood. Just after the flame is gone, Jett Durabo kicks open the cabin door and deploys a fire extinguisher. The others turn to stare at Jett, who stammers, "I was looking out my bedroom window when I saw the flame peek out of the cabin. I had to ask Mr. Oleander where the fire extinguisher was..." Jett finds a chair in the front room and sits on it, then, after taking in the surroundings, asks, "How did it happen?" The newcomer says, "It's like the shelf moved on its own. Is... is this place haunted?" "I haven't read any stories about this house," says Jett, "but given today is Halloween, it could be the case." "Very puzzling," the newcomer mutters under his breath. The one who started the fight shivers and tells Jett, "You should've brought a flamethrower. We lost the lamp and it's freezing tonight!" Rules: Help construct a hybrid Walk puzzle....

The two who were at one point holding the rug lay side by side on and perpendicular to the bedroom's creaky bed, exhausted from fighting. They decide to make amends. As the newcomer exits the bathroom to get back to business, they all hear the sound of glass shattering against the floor. Seemingly on its own, the shelf with the oil lamp had slid off its supports and dropped the fuel onto the rug. The newcomer shouts an expletive and yells at the others to help put the rug out immediately, lest it cause a raging inferno. Rules: Solve this as a Fire Walk which passes through every cell while keeping the four isolated null spaces inside the loop. penpa link (no answer check)

The front door of the abandoned wooden cabin creaks open slowly. There are only three rooms, one of which is essentially an outhouse. Much like the hotel, it has no electricity; however, its only source of lighting is the reflection from the moon. The newcomer sets the oil lamp on an unpainted wall's familiar wooden shelf away from any windows that might counteract its warmth. It does not take long for the three of them to find a rug of the right size. With an air of loneliness, one of the rug holders admits, "I truly wish Anastasia were here today. She's always here." The other says, "Why, so you wouldn't have to be out here? I know you wanted to avoid this." "To tell you the truth, I've grown a bit fond of her." The other lets go of the rug and says, "Trust me, you'd have better luck with Ophelia." "What the hell? You know that's a poor choice of words." "I won't let you have her. I won't." ...

In addition to the necessary warmth, the lamp provides a faint glow against the grass on the path to the cabin. The newcomer looks up into the night sky and is fascinated by how many stars can be seen. Suddenly, a yellow light appears, then disappears, then appears again. Somebody else says, "It's a firefly!" The atmosphere is ripe with cyclic flashes. Rules: Solve as a Hotaru Beam puzzle. Numbers are presented in binary, such that a shaded circle is 0 and an unshaded circle is 1. Striped circles are unknown digits. penpa link (no answer check)

(last updated 10/29/25: replaced "Wires" in rule with "Current" in case it misled)  N ow seemed to be as good a time as any to follow up on a promise, so before joining the others by the front door, the newcomer goes upstairs to room seven. Its resident awaits him. He's told, "I heard you have an eye for detail. Perhaps you can help us plan the wiring in the hotel." A wooden board with a lattice of metal pins rests on a table in the center of the room. "That gent I was talking about earlier sent this through the post office. We collected it today." Some of the pins have LEDs soldered between them and a contact switch spans a space in the center. "This is a plan for a doorbell. When the button is pressed, a wire shifts position. The lights were put in for a challenge. We'll have to fit a lot of stuff in a rather thin region." Rules: Plan wires spanning horizontally and vertically across the pins that activate every LED in series ...

They rendezvous in the bathroom. The newcomer watches as he brings in an unlit makeshift oil lamp. He admits that he'd only just recently learned how to prepare one but nonetheless starts it like a natural. A blast of hot air emerges from the top. He starts to angle the lamp to try to direct the gust into the ice. The newcomer quickly states his worry that some oil might spill out and start melting its way straight through to the drain, but he is a little late; a droplet burrows halfway through before cooling down. They cautiously upright the lamp and rest it on the ice. The newcomer remarks that the lamp would be useful to take while retrieving the rug. Rules: This puzzle is inspired by Time Bomb with parts from puzzles like Ice Walk and Water Walk . Every lamp moves simultaneously in terms of amount of spaces traveled and ignites when it has traveled as many spaces as its number. Lamps must not exit outside the grid. The entire grid is initially made of ice tiles, on which lamp...

After hearing some faint voices across the hall, the newcomer enters the lounge. It is occupied by three people, two of whom are thoroughly engaged in a civil debate. The third walks up to him and says, "Those two have been arguing for the past few minutes about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. It got quite heated earlier, though I know it's all in good fun. They've been rivals for as long as I can recall, always trying to one-up each other. It must be fate that they got to play each other in the tournament. Before their game, he wanted to wager his room key, the one to room four, but she convinced him not to. It's a relief he listened, however hesitantly, since he lost to her... You look like you want to say something?" "Yes. There's a block of ice in one of the sinks down here." "Uh-huh... I think I have something for that in my room. Wait there for me." Rules: Shade exactly half of the cells in this grid. All shaded masses of cells must ...

The newcomer enters the downstairs restroom to see what it would be like if he didn't get a deluxe suite. The floor is the same style as the one in his bathroom, but it's significantly cleaner. To his left are three shower stalls and to his right are several toilet stalls; both use the same sliding lock mechanism to ensure privacy. Along the back wall is a set of sinks, one of which has an open window above it. The sun had set a couple hours ago. Arctic air pervades the room. Considering that some residents may be showering here later, he walks up to the window and closes it. When he looks down at the sink below the window, he finds that a blocked mass of water had frozen into ice in its bowl. Rules: Draw a directional loop within the circular grid, which may cross itself. The loop may only make a 90-degree turn if it collides with an edge wall, and otherwise must either move in an arc around the center or along a diameter. The circumference of the grid is not considered walls.

(last updated 10/29/25: fixed the explanation of the tiebreaker to align with the description) The innkeeper says, "I'd like to get a replacement rug out of the cabin before you all leave tomorrow. Let's say it's a three-person job: two can hold the rug by the ends while the third can assist with the doors." The newcomer volunteers, but the rest shuffle in place. He continues, "Since Miss Vitale is away and I can't in good conscience ask Ophelia, that leaves ... seven of us, of which two should go." He looks around the event room for a method of deciding. "Let's make a deal. I have a standard deck of 52 playing cards. Each of us draws one. The two who get the lowest ranks, counting aces as above kings, must go. If there's a tie, the first suit alphabetically should go. So, a two of diamonds loses to an ace of diamonds and a two of spades. How does that sound?" For lack of a better option, they agree and draw their cards. The unlucky...

After the tournament, the newcomer asks the room if anyone in attendance has heard of the Montagues. At this, Ande tenses and stoically utters, "Be ruled by me. Forget to think of her," then continues the excerpt by turning around, falling to his knees, and pleading through a throe of despair, "O, teach me how I should forget to think!" The newcomer tries to deduce meaning from the water enveloping his sclerae and exclaims, "Oh. No, not those Montagues. I refer to a couple with their own island and mansion. They host events like this." There's a smattering of no's from around the room, with the sole exception of the event's winner, who was still being moved by the performance like a one-story home and garden would be moved by a bulldozer. The trance is broken when a chalice slips from the champion's hand and besmirches the ornate rug outstretched on the floor beneath, begetting profuse apologies. The actor sheds some more genuine tears. Rul...

Rules: Determine who won each game of the tournament. The rules and events of each of the three rounds are provided in the narrative below. No games end in a tie or forfeit.  Ande leans against one of the green walls of the event room and thanks everyone for coming. Everyone else at the hotel is seated at a table in front of a chessboard. The boards are unset, and all the pawns are missing, but this is intentional. Ande asks the pairs to decide who goes first, then reveals the rules. "For the first round, players take turns placing a piece into the center 4x4 region of the board. Both players should have the full back rank of a traditional setup, meaning it should be possible to fill the region if both players place every piece. White goes first; white's first turn is free, but every subsequent placement must attack the last piece that the opponent placed. The game ends when a player is unable to place a piece. Whoever places the last piece loses." Some people misundersta...

Rules: The following section of the narrative has been altered. There may be multiple ways to fix it, but only one is canonical. The canonical solution will suggest a thematic word. The newcomer gets to watch the debt of a flyer by a door. The one gluing it sees him and says, "You're here nearly! It starts at six o'clock." The newcomer asks, "What apery will occur at this upending tournament?" "I've come prepared to arbitrate the rounds, but nobody else knows how I've deigned it yet. Expect the unexpected," he replies with a truthless grin. On the flyer is one mage of a king and some text. The newcomer scrutinizes it and asks, "Do you know the frightful way to display lines of text? You've defied the monospace lettering to such an extent that thee lines are completely uneven. I can tell you about the better method afterward." The newcomer shifts his dragged shoes across the floor as he enters the event room

A man in his mid-thirties lugs a suitcase back down a road. It does not take long for him to arrive at his car. He retrieves a key fob from a pocket of his brown jacket and aims it at the car. It unlocks. He opens the trunk. It is packed with several bins of files. He searches for one in particular. Once he locates it, he shifts around some of the other bins to free it from the trunk and fit it into the suitcase. After ensuring that the car had not been broken into, he locks it again and walks back toward the hotel. Rules: Solve as a Tren . One block has already been provided. The resulting solution must be possible to solve as a Rush Hour puzzle in which the provided block must exit from the bottom. penpa link (no answer check)

The newcomer walks downstairs and enters the lounge. The walls are painted a uniform green, in contrast with the mostly red furniture. Since there aren't any windows in this room, nor is there any electric lighting in the hotel, the atmosphere is set by wall-mounted candles. The clerk sits at a spruce bar on the side of the room farther from the dining room door and has a cup of a bottle of something cheap from behind the bar. The newcomer sits at a stool beside him.  The clerk says, "Fancy a drink? It's just past five-o-clock. Perfect time for it." When the newcomer declines, the clerk says, "I never told you my name, did I? My surname has a whimsy to it, but you can call me by my first name, Dan." The newcomer nods and surveys the space behind the bar. On the various shelves are oddly shaped wooden containers. When he points them out, Dan says, "There used to be a fellow who came here with Anastasia every day. Charming gent. About her age. Bit eccentr...

When the newcomer re-enters the bedroom, the innkeeper is looking through a filing cabinet for some papers. He pulls out a folder and opens it to reveal the contents of the front. A paper had been manually shredded and jumbled to obfuscate it. "This is my financial statement for last year. I trust you won't tell anyone the specifics?" The newcomer shakes his head no as the innkeeper starts to rearrange it. "This three-digit number in the top-left is my revenue for the past year. The three-digit number in the bottom-right is my costs of operating. So, you can see what sort of situation I'm in." Rules: Solve as a Fillomino after rearranging the columns. All parts are displayed in the correct rotation. The correct grid will be a rectangle with no gaps or overlaps. The top-left corner and bottom-right corner of the grid have been marked to prevent symmetry-based nonuniqueness.

The main room of the innkeeper's suite is slightly larger than those of the deluxe suites. Along the back wall are pictures like those in the other room that display a partial history of the hotel. A set of drawers and the staple wardrobe help hold down a nice rug. There is plenty of unused space. The door to the left is ajar and leads to a bathroom. The innkeeper opens the door on the right and leads the newcomer into a bedroom. The newcomer gets a sense of déjà vu by recognizing the style of the bed from the deluxe suites. Hastily buried in the wall on the right side of the room is a wall safe held shut with a combination lock. The safe protrudes slightly from the otherwise flush wall, revealing shoddy craftsmanship: the sides of the safe are composed of several metal plates glued together. The front is held on by some obvious hinges instead of glue. "Now," starts the innkeeper, "I know what you're about to say. This is the least secure safe you've ever see...

Now that the paint has been sorted, the newcomer finally finds time to study the details of the room. The walls are an uncommon lavender. Various pictures are hung on the left wall. Crowding the base of the wardrobe are a broom, a dustpan, a vase of roses, a tainted bucket of water, a hammer, nails,  spackle, a trowel,  detergent, bars of soap, dish soap, glue, and towels of various sizes. Neatly hung in its center is the traditional outfit. The innkeeper says, "Miss Vitale is out today on paid leave. She said there was a family emergency with distant relatives. I'm holding her key until she returns. I would have liked to have my room cleaned today." Some of the patrons had not left the hallway. "Say, would you mind helping me with that? I heard you say you're a journalist and I know you're keen to see as much as you can while you're here. Besides, it gives you an alibi for spending time with me." The newcomer agrees and grabs the broom from the ward...

She sees herself out, leaving him to finish settling in. There are a few minutes of silence until a battery of loud thuds emanates from the opposite corner of the hotel. He instinctively runs out of his room toward the noise and enters an open door with the number eight. The innkeeper stands by the back wall. He stares at a collection of paint cans on the floor. None of them are leaking, but there is a wooden board beneath them propped up by something small. The newcomer looks up and finds that one of the supports of a shelf had broken off under the weight of the cans, shaving the glue off the other. The innkeeper bolts to the door and locks the two of them inside. He admits, "I don't want them to have another example of how run-down this place is." Under a minute later, there is a rattle of the knob and a knock, which the innkeeper dismissively responds to with an affirmation of safety. The patrons discuss theories in the hallway, their voices nearly inaudible through th...

As they leave the room, he asks her about her scarf. "My mother weaves one of these every year for every patron." "Did she ever teach you?" "No, but I'm sure I could figure it out if I wanted to. After all, she taught herself." He pauses with the key turned the first way in the lock. "I thought she said her husband taught her." She looks at her shoes and says, "Samuel was a sailor, spent his whole life on the sea. She never told me he wove. Unless you think she was talking about knots?" He disregards the discrepancy and turns the key the other way, allowing the door to click open. He does not share her excitement. His room is a bit larger than hers, not even counting the connected bathroom on the left. The wardrobe against the right wall is empty and the sheets of the queen-sized bed alongside the back are untucked. She sprints over to the bed and sinks into the mattress. He lays his suitcase by the door, sits beside it, and begins ...

The newcomer stands in front of a door on the second floor labeled with the number one. It matches the digit on the key in his palm. He is about to place the key in the lock when he hears footsteps coming up the stairs. They recognize each other. The diver observes the key in his hand and takes an interest in seeing his room. "I've always wanted to see what the deluxe suites look like, but the actor never allows anyone in." He thinks for a bit and says, "How about this. If you show me your room first, I'll show you mine." The unpacked suitcase is still by his side. She accepts the offer and opens the door to the adjacent room. The plasterboard is painted a soothing tint of blue. A window in the back wall overlooks the forest with the lake, offering a slight glimpse of a small building not very deep in the woods. In the back-right corner is a bunk bed; next to it is a side table with drawers. On the table is a battery-operated lamp and a necklace featuring an...